Doctor Who: Fallen Triangle - Part Three (Episodes 9-12)
by thunderdogg
Summary: The Tengoka are beginning to make their move, and the Doctor has a hidden agenda for being reunited with Callum, Keith and Laura. However, attempting to work out the mystery of the Triangle could prove difficult when the TARDIS team come across old enemies at war, a deadly undersea base, a city that time forgot, and a cursed land where Callum's terrible destiny is discovered...
1. The Apocalypse Boy (Part One)

**A/N - Part Three is finally here! And this is where things get good! I'm hoping to stick to my word and getting two chapters posted every Sunday, but I can't guarantee it'll be definite - things always seem to get in the way! Anyway, I hope you'll think it was worth the wait, and please review, yep!**

* * *

Izzy's eyes opened to almost complete darkness. His only source of light came from the glow of a distant moon filtering through the barred window of his cell. Of course, he couldn't sit up to enjoy the view as both his wrists and ankles had been clamped down to the stone slab he had been placed on.

"This isn't cool," he tried to say. Unfortunately, he was still clearly suffering from the effects of some tranquilliser or anaesthetic and it came out as more of a random moan.

_Okay, that's not cool either,_ he thought. _Now's a good time to try and remember where the hell I am and what's going on._

Then the small hatch on the steel door had slid back momentarily and a pair of glowing green eyes had looked through at him.

_Oh yeah, that's it,_ he remembered. _Rutans... I'm undecided on whether they're better or worse than Sontarans. I don't know – whatever the case I'm sick of getting put to sleep. Wonder what the big deal is that they've both had a shot n- Hey, that better not be a spider! Oh, it's not, that's good... Hm, should I start planning a dramatic escape or should I hope for the best that someone else is stupid enough to come save me? Preferably someone whose eyes aren't green. Those Rutans' eyes are freaky as hell._

* * *

Callum Hendrick grinned as he pushed open the coffee shop door and made his way to the counter, the sunlight glinting in his cheerful green eyes.

"Oh, I didn't expect you to be in today!" the girl behind the counter said, smiling at him sweetly.

"Aw, nah, I don't have a shift today, Sarah," he replied, "I'm just waiting on Keith and Laura."

"Ah, I should've figured," she nodded, crossing over to one of the machines. "Just having your usual?"

"Yeah, please," Callum said, absent-mindedly gazing up at the menu he practically knew off by heart by now. He'd been working shifts at the coffee shop ever since he got back from his latest travels. Of course, as far as everyone else was concerned – with the exception of Keith and Laura – he'd never left. In reality, altogether he'd spent a good few months away from home, travelling through time and space. And in three more days, as long as the Doctor kept his promise, he'd be off again for more travels soon.

"Three more days," someone said to him, snapping him out of his trail of thought. He looked to see Sarah, with her long blonde hair and her dimples, leaning across the counter, almost right in his face.

"Huh?" he said, taking a flustered step back and nearly tripping over a chair.

"Three more days til payday!" Sarah beamed. "There's your gingerbread latte! Don't worry 'bout the staff discount thing, just take it on the house." She leaned a little further over the counter to whisper consiprationally. "Just don't tell Ms Vandini."

"Ahh, terribly unprofessional of you, Sarah Munro," Keith Whyte joked as he strode in through the door, hand-in-hand with Laura, who was carrying three large shopping bags in her other free hand.

"That's enough out of you, Keith," Sarah retorted, waving a pair of tongs menacingly as she reached into one of the display counters and pulled out a white chocolate cookie.

"Aw, fair enough," shrugged Keith with a grin as he slid into a booth on the far side of the room. Laura slid her bags under the table and sat down next to him, while Callum gave Sarah another smile of thanks and crossed the floor to sit with the couple.

"Three more days, ay?" Laura said. "Reckon he'll be here on time for once?"

"Oh, probably not if I know him," laughed Callum. "I tried to phone him the other day but all I got was some guy called Strax ranting about sherbet fancies and someone called Jenny."

"Universal roaming playing up?" Keith asked. "Mines seemed to pack in as soon as we got back."

"That's because you threw it off a wall six times when you were in a strop with your brother," Laura pointed out.

"Yeah, well, that's not the point!" Keith laughed. "At the end of the day, I take no responsibility for it."

"It was you who did it though!"

"But it's not the point!"

The conversation followed the same sort of path for a few moments before Keith decided he wanted a drink and went up to order for him and Laura.

"So, have you been feeling all right ever since... that thing?" Laura asked. Callum looked up from his drink to see she was looking at him with deep concern.

"Completely," he nodded. "Seriously, I can't even completely remember what happened!"

"Hm, okay," she said. "You still haven't explained what the deal with the picture Mimi gave you is."

"I've left that to the Doctor to work out," Callum said. "He figured it was better that way. I've just been trying not to dwell on it."

"Well, that's fair enough," Laura nodded, reaching under the table and into one of the large shopping bags. Keith crossed over and sat back down, placing a cup down in front of Laura and taking a drink of his own.

"What's up?" he said as he placed his own cup back down – a small white mustache of cream had formed on his upper lip. "You two okay?"

"Probably," chuckled Callum. On the other side of the shop, a bell chimed as someone entered, making their way up to the counter.

"Anyway," Laura said, taking this opportunity to lead the conversation, "have either of you started your summer project for English yet?"

"What one – the fictional one or the review?"

"Fiction," Laura answered. "I was thinking of writing about how we helped that couple fall in love to save Sperius Six."

"Oh, they were the ones who thought Shakespeare was a god, yeah?"

"Ahaha, yeah," laughed Callum. "The real life Romeo and Juliet of the 53rd century."

"Ah, yes, I remember it well!" said a familiar voice, sliding into the empty seat beside Callum, catching them all offguard.

"Doctor!" the three cried in unison, happily. The Time Lord smiled to himself and took a sip of tea out of the small cup he had placed down.

"Hello, you three!" he said. "Long time no see!"

* * *

"How long?!" cried Callum, as he followed the Doctor out the coffee shop, giving a quick wave to Sarah on the way out. Keith and Laura followed close behind – Laura still clutching her shopping bags.

"Oh, a couple years, maybe more – I don't know," the Doctor said, waving a hand dismissively. They followed him past two other stores, and then down a small alleyway in between a charity shop and a Subway.

The TARDIS sat halfway down the alley, its paintwork looking slightly faded than the last time the three teens had seen it. Besides that, however, it was the same old TARDIS.

At least until they stepped inside.

"You've redecorated," Laura pointed out, as they stood in the open doorway for a moment, looking around at the console room's new look.

Instead of the orange light, brass and glass look they had grown so accustomed to, this room was smaller and more confined, with a strange blue-green glow. Everything was much more mechanical now, with a sharper-looking six-sided console and a thinner, more stream-lined looking time rotor. Two banks of controls were also on either side of the main level, and on the floor below, they could see a tunnelway leading further into the TARDIS.

"Ah, yes, it was time for a change," the Doctor said, a sudden sad look crossing his face. "But never mind that now, you three! We have a mission!"

"A mission?" Callum repeated, arching an eyebrow.

"A mission!" the Doctor beamed, suddenly an overexcited child. "Hurry up and shut the door, you're letting a draught in!"

Laura closed the door behind her as she dropped her bags at the side, and followed Callum and Keith up to the main console with the Doctor. The Doctor gestured for them to look at one of the two monitors round the console, as it displayed an image of a small orange sphere.

"Where's that, then?" Keith asked, squinting at the Gallifreyan symbols running across the screen.

"The fourth moon of Glamisium Calit," the Doctor replied, already rushing to set the controls, his new purple coat flapping behind him.

"And what's the mission?" Callum asked, looking around the time rotor as the Doctor adjusted something on one of the control banks.

"Rescue someone, do a jailbreak, prevent a genocide, just the usual," the Doctor listed off, turning back to the main part of the console and slamming down on a lever, setting the time rotor into motion.

The engines began their characteristic metal throb of power as the TARDIS took off, dematerialising from its parking space in a Glasgow alleyway, and launching off into the infinite tunnels of the time vortex.

* * *

"Alright, so what's the deal with this prisoner then?" asked Callum, as the Doctor continued to guide the TARDIS through time and space.

"Not sure – they've nicknamed him 'the Apocalypse Boy', though," the Doctor frowned, tapping something into a keypad and squinting up at the monitor. "Let's see if I can break into a databank or two."

Meanwhile, Callum was trying to recall the various TARDIS controls, as they'd all been rearranged during the TARDIS' last reconstruction. The helmic regulator was now at the panel facing the door, and the Ziton crystals were now over on one of the control banks to the side.

"You need a new thermo buffer," he said, pointing at the burnt out looking device on the panel to the right of the helmic regulator.

"Ah, yes," the Doctor nodded, giving it a quick glance, before rattling some more keys on the small pad, "been meaning to do that for a while now – it's been a little hectic."

"Y'know, it's funny," Laura said, sitting down in a seat to the side of one of the control banks, "it's been years since you last saw us but you act like it's barely been a couple weeks."

"I'm a Time Lord," shrugged the Doctor. "Time doesn't affect me the way it does with you lot!"

"Do you ever... wish it did?" Keith asked, curiosity obvious in his tone and expression. The Doctor looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Well, I've... not had to think about it for a long time," he admitted, "not since I was about nine hundred or so. Different man back then, of course."

"You were only nine hundred and seven when we first met," Callum remembered. "Blimey, I'm saying that like it's barely anything."

"It's been a busy three hundred or so years," the Doctor said, his smile tinged with just a hint of sadness. "Anyway, enough of that! _Looook _what I have here!"

"What is it?" asked Callum, as the three of them crowded around the Doctor at the monitor again.

"The Apocalypse Boy. Human-ish. Says here he was taken from the settlement on the planet SandSphere in the year 4129. 42nd century boy, hm."

"Is that... important?"

"Hm, oh yes," the Doctor nodded, the light from the monitor shining in the lenses of the reading glasses that had apparently appeared out of nowhere – or more accurately: from the depths of one of the dimensionally transcendental pockets of his coat. "42nd century humans are very adaptable. Perfect for turning into a biological doomsday device. And this one was practically bred for adaptating!" He paused again, squinting at the text on screen, before he typed something else in quickly, and the image onscreen changed to show a schematic of a massive spaceship.

The central part of the ship was a large sphere, covered in lots of small pods, perhaps big enough for two people to fit into. On either end of the sphere, three large spikes reaching about double the length of the sphere perched on, small blue lights flickering along the length of it.

"What's that, then?" Keith asked.

"Is that their ship we're gonna be looking for down on that moon?" Callum asked.

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head slightly. "It's the Sontaran warship that the boy was on originally. I'm just trying to access their data logs – but we're too far out of range."

"So, we'll need to do a little nudge their way then?"

"Oh, Hendrick," the Doctor smiled, "you're brilliant! Shall we do a refresher course on flying the TARDIS?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Callum beamed as the Doctor yanked down on the helmic regulator and reached over for something else. "Geronimo?"

"Geronimo!"

* * *

_My head is killing me,_ thought Izzy, staring up at the ceiling once again. _It's like I'm burning behind my eyes. _An unrelated thought came to mind. _I'd kill for a kronkburger right now._

It was daytime now – or at least, the closest to daytime it ever got to on a moon. The sky was a strange sort of pink-purple, and through the window Izzy could see the large orange planet on the skyline.

"Wonder if there's any kronkburgers down there," he said to himself, pleased to hear he could speak again. He was quiet for a moment, and then: "Oi, you guarding the door, fancy finding me some decent food? An IV feed a day isn't keeping the doctor away."

The hatch in the door slid back, and the glowing green eyes glared through at him.

"Silence, child."

"Hey, I'm starving here! The least you could do is give me a good meal."

"I said _silence_," shrieked the Rutan through the door, slamming the hatch shut behind it.

"Oh, this just _isn't_ my day," Izzy hissed, tilting his head to look back out the window again as a flock of red birds flew by, their strange birdcall ringing through the bars in the window.

* * *

An alarm blared as the Doctor and Callum leaped through the doorway, as laser fire tore through behind them. They ducked behind a section in the wall and the blasts ripped into the wall at the end of the corridor.

Again, they dived out and round the corner, Callum tearing over from the left hand side to the right, following the Doctor through the winding black-and-purple labyrinth of the warship of the Seventh Sontaran Scientific Research Fleet.

"_Take a left at the end of the next corridor,_" Laura instructed through the earpiece Callum had put in his ear as soon as they'd left the TARDIS in hunt of the main computer database.

"Okay, got it," nodded Callum.

"_Wait, no, sorry, I was pressing the wrong button,_" Laura replied. "_That was meant to be Keith's direction. You're going straight on and then taking your third left._"

"God, I've missed this!" he laughed.

Moments later, they were back in the atrium where the TARDIS had landed, just as Keith rushed in through a side door, slamming his hand down on a button that slid the door shut behind him.

"You would not believe the day I'm having," he groaned, sliding down the door, panting for breath.

"Come on," Callum grinned, helping him to his feet as the Doctor unlocked the TARDIS. "We found the databanks like three floors up and the Doctor managed to get the data disc!"

"Well, at least our ordeal wasn't a complete waste," chuckled Keith, as the two of them made their way back into the TARDIS. A moment later, there was a dull clunk and then the whoosh of ancient engines as the blue box began to dematerialise.

Once they were back in the safety of the time vortex, the Doctor slid the Sontaran's data disc into the side of the monitor and quickly loading the files.

The Doctor threw his jacket onto the railing by the door and slid his reading glasses on again, swivelling around to inspect the monitor.

"What is it, Doctor?" Laura asked, as the Doctor's eyes widened.

"This is worse than I thought," he murmured. "I already knew he had been attuned to become a bio-weapon, but this is worse than I thought."

"Why's that?" frowned Callum, craning his neck to see over the Doctor's shoulder.

"Because it's completely unstable! These readings here," - he pointed at the left hand side of the screen, where several circles were pulsating erratically - "basically confirm that without direct action, that explosion could tear a black hole into existence."

"I thought black holes could only be made by collapsing stars or something?" Keith said.

"Well, yes, normally," the Doctor said, nodding furiously, "but in this case, the explosion, bio-tuned to the Rutans DNA will filter out in temporal and spatial dimensions."

"And that'll be enough to tear a hole in the universe?" Callum reasoned.

"Well, they don't call him the Apocalypse Boy for nothing," put in Keith.

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded grimly. "Things are getting more and more complicated by the minute."

* * *

Onboard the Sontaran ship, an alert flashed up on one of the computer banks and Research Commander Skel, an unmasked Sontaran scientist with a large scar running across his domed head, punched a code into the device, and the ship's computer voice boomed through the speakers, "Intruders have been identified as the Doctor and his companions. The files on the bio-weapon child have been stolen."

"Then the Doctor can lead us right to the Rutan Host!" Commander Skrel said approvingly. "Excellent."

"Temporal co-ordinates can be traced to follow the route of the Doctor's vehicle."

"Ah, yes, his TARDIS," Skrel said. "It is said Staal of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet was once able to capture the Doctor's TARDIS. In retaliation the Time Lord turned them all to dust. We must tread lightly..."

"Will the strategists be required?"

"Yes, yes," Skel said, turning to face out of the window, gazing out into the red starry sky of the Spiralhart Nebula. "I shall leave it to them to devise a stratagem so that we may retrieve the weapon, crush the Doctor and his foolish friends, obtain the last living TARDIS in the universe, and wipe every single last stinking Rutan off the face of the Universe. For the glory of Sontar!"

"For the glory of Sontar!" echoed the ship's computer.

"Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha! _Sontar-ha!_" bellowed the rest of the crew in echo with their leader.


	2. The Apocalypse Boy (Part Two)

The TARDIS groaned and wheezed into existence on a cliff-side, under a brilliant pink-purple sky. Stepping out onto the rockface, Keith whistled, impressed at the sight of the large orange planet they could just make out through the pale pink clouds.

A warm gust of wind hit Callum as he exited the TARDIS, and he smiled as he joined Keith on the edge of the cliff.

"Y'know, it's only been a month," he beamed, "but I've _really_ missed this!"

Laura stepped out a moment later, having left her denim jacket in the TARDIS. The Doctor stepped out a moment later, and took out a pair of opera glasses from the pocket of his purple jacket, looking out across the wasteland.

"So what exactly are we looking for?" asked Laura. "Spacey wacey prison? Underground base?"

"One or the other," the Doctor shrugged. "Or both, I don't know really."

"As helpful as ever," chuckled Callum. "What was to stop us landing the TARDIS like right in the cell?"

"Too risky," the Doctor replied. "Wouldn't want the Rutans getting hold of her."

"Ah, yeah, _that_," nodded Callum. "Although..."

"Although what?" the Doctor said, still gazing through the opera glasses.

"Although," Callum continued, "it looks like they might get hold of it anyway..."

The Doctor lowered the opera glasses and looked over as Callum pointed upwards as a small craft seemed to be soaring straight towards them.

"Ah... that's an issue."

He quickly reached into his pocket, withdrawing the sonic screwdriver.

"Do we run?" Keith asked. "Running seems like a good idea right now!"

"Oh, no," the Doctor replied, frowning at him as if he'd suggested something ridiculous. He pointed the screwdriver at the TARDIS, and it momentarily rippled, before disappearing from sight.

"What did you do?" asked Laura, her head flicking from the craft to the spot where the TARDIS had just been.

"Oh, just put her a second out of sync with real time," the Doctor explained. He looked at the three blank faces of his companions and rolled his eyes. "I've hid the TARDIS very, very well!"

"So we're just waiting to get caught then?" asked Keith.

"Not 'caught' per se," the Doctor said, gesticulating as he spoke. "More sort of taken away from here and back to their base until we can plan our escape."

"So, caught then?"

"Fine, call it caught!" the Doctor sighed. "You 21st century lot are all very literal!"

The craft was now almost directly above them, and a beam of green light shot down on them. They looked up into the light – the Doctor looking decidedly too happy for someone who was about to be imprisoned.

There was a separate flash of green light, and the four of them found themselves standing in a plain looking flight deck. There were six tall men wearing neat black overalls. They looked completely human besides the fact the entire surface of their eyes were an eerie glowing green.

"Oh, did I mention they're shapeshifters?" the Doctor said, cheerfully. "They really look like big green floating jellyfish!"

"Silence!" snapped one of the Rutans, glaring at the four of them. "You will be restrained and taken to Base One."

"No trial?" asked the Doctor, innocently.

"There is no need for a trial," intoned another Rutan. "You are trespassing on our base world."

"Base world?" Callum frowned. "Surely this is just a moon belonging to that planet?"

"We have acquired it."

"Hm, and how many members of their government did you need before they let you get away with that?" the Doctor asked, coldly. "No doubt the planet wasn't the best hiding place, eh?"

"This moon serves our interests better," the first Rutan said. It had taken the form of a seven-foot tall dark-skinned man, with a pale moon-shaped scar around the side of his eye.

"And what would they be, eh? Anything to do with a boy who could tear a hole in the Universe?"

Immediately, the seven Rutans both snapped round to look at the Doctor, intensely.

"What do you know of the weapon?"

"Well, for starters I know that he's a human being," snapped the Doctor, stepping off of the circle they had teleported onto and squaring up to the Rutan with the scar. "And you lot could do a lot better by not dragging any other species into your ridiculous war with the Sontarans!"

"You are aware of the Sontarans?"

"Of course I am. Nothing but trouble – either of you."

"We will be at Base One in one hundred and twenty counts," announced a computerised voice overhead.

"Is that minutes or seconds?" whispered Keith.

"Not a clue, but I don't fancy being stuck onboard for two hours," Callum replied.

"Descend in one hundred counts," the leader said to one of the crew.

"I'm guessing it's seconds then," Laura answered.

"Conversation will cease," one of the Rutans snapped.

"Oh, I can just tell this is going to be one hell of a fun trip to prison," groaned Callum.

* * *

The next hour seemed to fly by as the craft lowered down onto the roof of Base One where several other identical crafts were parked. The Base was exactly like a large prison building, made out of dull grey concrete, surrounded by several watchtowers. The only noticeable difference from any Earth prison was that instead of large barbed wire fences, there were only strange fields of flickering red sheets of light.

The Doctor quickly explained that they were laser fields, considered three hundred per cent more effective at preventing breakouts. Moments later, they were being taken down a flight of stairs, through a secure looking set of steel doors, and down several staircases before arriving at what a sign identified as Level Six.

They were ushered through Level Six, a large chamber with about fifty cells on each side. Each door was the same grey-blue steel of the double doors they had taken from the roof, except each of these doors had writing on them, as green as the Rutans' eyes.

Finally, they were lead into a large hall, completely unlike the rest of the building. The walls, floor and ceiling were all jet black, and glowing green cables sprawled everywhere, linking large – almost alive – machines. Each machine was like an organic version of the two control panels in the TARDIS, each a strange sickly green colour, with throbbing and pulsating green lights of different shades and speeds, each of them manned by at least two Rutans.

The four of them were lead to the centre of the room, where a large glass sphere – easily big enough to fit a double decker bus into – was housed. Several of the machines seemed to link up to the giant sphere, and floating inside it, in what appeared to be a strange pale green mist, was a large green jellyfish-like creature.

"You will present yourselves to the Queen."

"What? The jelly?" Keith asked, eyebrow arched.

"_Silence, human._" The voice seemed to be coming through the banks of machines around the room, yet they all immediately knew it was the Queen, inside her sphere, who was talking.

"Got a thing for green, haven't they?" Callum found himself muttering.

"_You have been brought here for trespassing upon this world._"

"Your Magnificence," the scarred Rutan who had lead them said, taking a step closer to the sphere, "they know of the Apocalypse Boy."

"_Do they now? Intriguing._" The Rutan Queen moved in her tank, coming closer to the glass as if looking out at her four captives. "_Have the Sontarans sent you?_"

"Ah, quite the opposite, actually, Your Maj!" the Doctor replied airily, stepping around the Rutan guard and approaching the sphere. Several of the Rutans went to move, but one of the Queen's tendrils seemed to snap upwards to indicate to them to halt. The Doctor looked around at them for a moment and then continued to address the Queen. "We are... an interested party!"

The three teens exchanged looks, completely lost as to what the Doctor was suddenly doing. The Rutans didn't seem to be paying much attention to them however, fortunately enough.

"_An interested party? In the war?_"

"Well, as a matter of fact, we actually rather hoped to assist you in _ending_ it!"

"_And how do you intend on doing that?_" By this point, the Queen had almost squished herself up against the glass. Callum found himself comparing her size to that of a people carrier, going with the transport analogy he'd thought of for the sphere.

"Well, I can tell you for a fact that I'm probably infinitely more capable of... defusing the boy, for lack of a better word..."

"_You are a scientist?_"

"Well, I have been known to tinker," the Doctor said modestly, though Callum could see that familiar little smile of his, reflected off the glass sphere.

"_Then you will help us!_" The Queen suddenly seemed rather insistent and – Callum couldn't help but notice – a little desperate.

"Well, yes," the Doctor nodded. "I'll stop the detonation, take the boy off your hands and then my friends and I will get out of your hair!" He suddenly looked thoughtful. "Or tentacles! I don't suppose you have hair, really..."

"_No!_" the Queen snapped – the single word bouncing from the walls and resonating through the room.

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Laura asked, taking a cautious step closer to the sphere. "He's just offered to save you all!"

"Silence, girl," spat their Rutan guard, clamping a hand down over Laura's mouth.

"Oi!" roared Keith, pointing a finger in the Rutan's face, his own expression suddenly a dangerous mask. "Get your hands off of her right now!"

"_Seize the three half-forms._"

A moment later, Callum and Keith found themselves in the same unfortunate situation as Laura, a stolen hand covering their mouths, pressed against the stolen bodies that hosted the Rutan guards.

"Let them go," the Doctor urged the Queen. A moment passed while the Doctor's request hung in the air, before there was a slight burble of noise and the Queen spoke again.

"_It would be a foolish move to let go of my insurance._"

"What? What does that mean?" the Doctor asked, turning back for a moment to look at his three captive friends as they struggled against the vice-like grip of their guards. Callum mumbled something indignantly, and Keith made a grunt that seemed to be combined with a multitude of swear words.

"_You _will_ defuse the boy for me, and you _will _help me win the war,_" the Queen said. "_But only by using your genius to bio-tune the Sontarans' weapon to their own species!_"

"No! That's not what I mea-" the Doctor began to protest. However, he was suddenly cut out again as the Queen interrupted to inform him he would start work on the next work cycle tomorrow and until then, he and his friends would be taken to separate cells on Level Four.

"Don't worry!" the Doctor said, turning to the three teens moments before they were lead away. "Whatever happens, I _will _get us out of here!"

* * *

It had been two hours since their arrest, and Callum wasn't feeling particularly happy. He had been made to strip down to his underwear, walk through a disinfecting chamber, and three scanners, then when he had finally been allowed to put his clothes back on, he'd had a mugshot taken and a number registered to him, before he had been slammed up against a wall, had his T-shirt pulled up, and had a laser cut and embed a small tracer just under a layer of skin somewhere to the left of his navel, above his hipbone.

He could see it flashing under his skin now, as he lay down on the uncomfortable bed that was the only real item of furnishing in the cell. It was a small green blip that made him ill to look directly at, mainly because he knew it was actually inside him...

"These guys _really_ have a thing for green," he muttered to himself bitterly. He tried to work out a plan of action, but as the Rutans had been thorough enough to take his phone, his TARDIS key and his wallet, he was sort of at a loss for anything to do.

He sat upright, and found himself gazing out of the window, in an attempt to ignore the small green light under his T-shirt.

It was almost nightfall... probably... and past the fences of laser light, he could make out small spacecraft zooming around somewhere in between the orange planet and another moon, this one as white as Earth's own.

A small high-pitched whine suddenly seemed to come from his hip – he knew straight away that it was the tracer device, and he pulled up his T-shirt to see the light had changed from green to red.

"That can't be good," he groaned, only seconds before a sudden wave of exhaustion seemed to ripple through him, and he found himself slamming back down onto the bed, and into a deep sleep.

* * *

Moments before a certain person's sonic screwdriver was taken from, a setting was adjusted and a signal was sent across the surface of the moon, signalling a certain blue box to break out of its current state of being a second out of time, just long enough for its temporal co-ordinates to be traced by a spaceship somewhere several thousand miles away.

"The Doctor!" roared Commander Skel, slapping the baton he held down on the nearest monitor as an alert rang out on the control deck of the command ship of the Seventh Sontaran Scientific Research Fleet. "Is it the Doctor?!"

"Yes, sir," Captain Storb – the helmeted Sontaran manning the nearest console – confirmed. "The Doctor's TARDIS has been traced to one of the moons of Glamisium Calit! He has lead us straight to the Rutan Host!"

"Then we set course at once! How long shall it take us from our current position?"

"Ah, sir, the Doctor's ship has disappeared again – out of synchronisation within all traceable dimensions!"

"Then we shall remove acquiring the Doctor's TARDIS from our plans for now." Commander Skel grimaced – he disliked changing plans. "Now, how long shall it take for us to reach this moon?"

"If we are to initiate full battle protocol then we shall arrive there in a matter of hours, sir!"

Commander Skel considered Storb's words, rapping his baton off his gloved hand for several moments.

"Hm, yes... for now, we shall proceed in preparation for full battle with the Rutan Host. The Time Lord and his half-forms are irrelevant. We may attempt to apprehend them if _they_ attempt intervention, but otherwise the Rutan Host and the boy are our main objectives."

"Very good, sir!" Storb said. "I shall inform the rest of the crew immediately."

"Off to it, Captain!" Skel said, with a small incline of his head. He turned away from the console, gazing out the viewing window as the command ship drifted by the Indigo Alignment.

_So very peaceful_, Skel thought to himself, the purple light reflecting through the window and mixing with the blue light of the control room. _Isn't it repulsive..._

* * *

Three hours before the morning cycle began, on Level Four of Base One, the Doctor came to. Immediately, he realised that the tracer had released a sleeping agent into his bloodstream. Fortunately, being a Time Lord, its effects weren't as strong or long-lasting as it would be on a human.

"Oh, no!" the Doctor cried, sitting upright as he remembered Callum, Keith and Laura were also imprisoned.

He quickly looked out the window, and observed the alignment of the stars in the sky and the angle that the planet was in relation to the moon, calculations running through his head at a million miles a minute.

"Hm, so the morning cycle is in about three hours, and no doubt the Rutans won't want their prisoners awake before then, which means those three have another three hours of sleep... Gives me plenty of time to work things out!"

He smiled to himself as he took in his surroundings.

_This might not be as difficult as I thought._


	3. The Apocalypse Boy (Part Three)

**A/N - Well, this episode's ended up drawing out a little longer than originally planned! Luckily, I've finished it, but for now I'm only gonna post two parts, and save the concluding two parts for next week, along with a Meanwhile in the TARDIS for the next episode.**

_**The10thDoctorRocks -**_** I'm glad you're enjoying it so far! Still trying to do my best with keeping the Doctor in character! Throwing in references is actually one of my favourite things to do when I'm writing these, haha!**

* * *

The sand was warm beneath Izzy's bare feet as he walked towards the lake at the edge of Settler's City. Several of the children dashed around, playing on the shore. But it wasn't them he was going to meet.

The girl with the silver-blonde hair, standing in the water, smiled as she saw him approach. She wore a pretty lace vest and blue denim mini-shorts.

"You're late, mister," the girl smiled, as Izzy gave a cheery grin.

"I'm always late!" shrugged Izzy, kicking up some water and splashing her, earning a playful shove that sent him tumbling right under the surface. He laughed as he burst up again, pushing his wet blonde hair out of his eyes.

And then the girl – that beautiful girl – looked at him with eyes full of hate. They began to light up, changing from the oceanic blue to a startling green. Powerful arms suddenly grasped his neck and shoved him back under the water before he was able to gasp another breath.

_No, _he screamed internally. _Why? How? H-_

* * *

"-_amburgers!_" Izzy yelled, his eyelids snapping wide open. "Hey, guard! Did someone slip me something in my IV?! Think I've got enough drugs getting pumped through me, thanks!"

"You will be silent," the guard on the other side of the door growled.

"But I'm _huuuuuungry_," whined Izzy.

"You will be _silent!_"

"Pfft, you guys are all so moody."

He lay there for the next half hour, just staring out of the window at the lightening sky. What the Rutans called 'the morning cycle' was almost here.

He was taken by surprise as the door suddenly groaned open and a tall, imposing looking woman stepped into the cell, glaring at him with her glowing green eyes. She had grey hair tied back in a tight bun, wearing a flowery blouse and a red suit with a matching skirt. She looked like she'd work as a school principal or a mayoress or something official along the same lines.

"I am Unit 114 – seventh in line with conjunction within the Queen's Cycle."

"Hi, my name's Izzy – and I'm a walking timebomb!" Izzy retorted, cheekily. He glanced down at the restraints around his wrists and ankles. "Well, I say 'walking'..."

"Enough!" snapped Unit 114. She turned to the three guards now standing in the doorway. "993, 994, take him to Level Minus One. 827, go to the Doctor's cell and escort him down as well."

"That would be agreeable," the three guards said in unison.

_I wonder who this Doctor guy is_, Izzy pondered as his restraints were undone. _If he's in a cell, he must be a prisoner too. Maybe he can tell me what's going on in this weird place._

993 and 994 removed his restraints and he sat up and stretched out his arms, groaning happily as the dull ache in his body slowly disappeared. He ran a hand through his hair, and grimaced as he felt how greasy it was. He probably smelled horrible – it'd been days since he'd last been allowed to wash, and he had a sort of naïve hope that maybe they were taking him downstairs so he could actually get clean.

His freedom – and trail of thought – was short-lived, however, as he felt cuffs go down on his wrists and ankles, right where his restraints had been only moments before.

"Ugh, really? My wrists are itchy as heck as it is, dammit!"

"Your wrists should be the least of your concerns, boy," 114 sneered.

Izzy gulped. He really didn't like where things seemed to be going.

* * *

The Doctor had been escorted down to what appeared to be an early 21st century laboratory down on Level Minus One. The machinery looked mostly scavenged from humanoid species, but there were three or four items that were definitely more organic in origin, possibly Rutan in origin. At the back of the white walled laboratory, amidst the shining metal machinery and silver work surfaces, the Doctor recognised a Sontaran control system, identical to the one he had hacked into back on the Sontaran ship the night before.

"This should be more than enough to help you reprogram the weapon," said the severe-looking woman who had been waiting for him when he had arrived.

"Yes, yes, that's all well and good but do I really need the handcuffs?"

"Ah yes," the woman smirked. "Unit 827, remove the cuffs, but you can guard the door. 993 and 994 will join you on guard while the Doctor begins work."

The door slid open a moment later, and two identical guards, wearing the same black uniforms as the other Rutans the Doctor had seen so far, with the exception of the woman who seemed to only call herself Unit 114. In between them, they were holding a tall, gangly boy wearing a white T-shirt and baggy black shorts. His blonde hair was messed up and greasy, and he had dark rings around his contrastingly cheerful, large cerulean eyes.

"Hey there," the boy said, "I s'pose you're the Doctor?"

"That'd be me," the Doctor nodded. He took off his purple jacket and threw it onto a nearby chair. "So what's your name when they're not calling you 'the Apocalypse Boy'?"

"That's what they call me?" Izzy chuckled, eyebrows raised.

"They seem to forget you're a human being," the Doctor shrugged. "You don't seem particularly bothered."

"I dunno," Izzy replied, rubbing his wrists as they were uncuffed. "I think after being locked up and poked and prodded for so long I've just sort of grown used to it."

The three guards exited the lab, stepping out to guard the corridor, and 114 looked at the Doctor in irritation.

"You can chit chat while you work. Our Queen expects results posthaste."

The Doctor went to say something but she cut him off.

"And don't think we're doing you any favours by not posting guards in the room. You're under constant observation and if you try the door, you'll receive a 4000 volt shock."

"Ah, lovely! Don't worry, don't worry – escaping isn't on the schedule," the Doctor said, rolling up the sleeves of his grey shirt. "I suppose you can... run along now." He waved a hand dismissively, and 114 glowered at him before turning and leaving the room.

The door slid shut behind her, and two large metal bolts suddenly slid across the surface, meeting a circular indent in the middle.

"Well, now that we know we're completely locked in..." The Doctor glanced at his wristwatch. "Alright, looks like we've got an hour and twelve minutes."

"Until what?" Izzy asked, sitting up on the closest counter and looking over at the Doctor, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"I'll explain later," the Doctor said. "Anyway, you never told me your name?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry! I'm Izzy Seven."

"Pleasure to meet you, Izzy Seven," the Doctor smiled. "How long's it been since you were last at home?"

"On SandSphere? A good couple months."

"Ah..." the Doctor stared off into space for a moment, and then looked at his watch again. "Must've slipped a time track after all."

"A time track? What're you on about? And do you have any shoes or something because the floor's made my feet real cold!"

"Oh, I'll... explain later. And, no, sorry!" the Doctor shoved back his hair and then searched his pockets for a moment before slapping himself on the forehead. "Need my sonic screwdriver!"

"There's a phone thingy over there," Izzy said, pointing to the set that was wired into the wall next to the door. "You could try asking them for it?"

"Ah, good eye!" the Doctor nodded, picking up the phone and shouting down it, "Oi, I need my sonic screwdriver for this!"

A moment later he slammed the phone back down and looked pleased.

"What did they say?" Izzy asked.

"Oh, nothing," the Doctor replied, pacing up the room and adjusting some switches on a machine. "I just shouted then hung up before they could reply."

Izzy laughed. "You're strange. But you seem nice enough. You're not gonna cut me open are you?"

"Um, no, I'm not," the Doctor said, a little caught offguard by how casual the boy was about it. "I'm just going to run a few scans and see if there's anything I can do to... defuse you."

"Fair enough," Izzy shrugged. "I just don't want to hurt anyone – no matter what they did to me."

"Oh, Izzy Seven, I wish there were more people like you," the Doctor smiled. "Let's see what I can do!"

* * *

It was fifty minutes and seven scans later that the Doctor frowned, looked at his watch, crossed over to the phone at the door and picked it up.

"I need my assistants," the Doctor said to whoever was on the end of the line. "You know there's no escape from this room so you've got nothing to lose."

He rolled his eyes at the reply from whoever he was talking to.

"Yes, yes, I don't care if you send a guard in, I just need my assistants!"

He slammed the phone down again and looked moody for a moment, before he crossed back over to Izzy and his face lit up again.

"Why d'you need your assistants? Are they as weird as you?"

"Oh, probably," the Doctor nodded. "It's all part of the plan!"

"What plan?"

"The getaway plan," the Doctor said, tapping his nose conspirationally.

"There's a plan then?"

"Well, half a plan – we'll call it a thing for now!"

"A thing?"

"Yeah, just a thing, but a thing can be better than a plan! More brilliant, for starters."

"I'm really hoping you've actually thought this out at least a little!" Izzy said, scratching the back of his head in confusion.

* * *

It was another five minutes before the Doctor's three assistants were brought into the lab, and another guard thrusted the sonic screwdriver into the Doctor's hands. The Doctor quickly introduced them as Callum Hendrick – a tall, lean-figured boy, with messy hair the colour of caramel, and emerald green eyes – Keith Whyte – a red-haired boy, shorter and stockier than Callum, with some light freckles across his face – and Laura McKinroy – the shortest of the trio, with her light brown hair framing her face, with the back tied up in a spiky ponytail, and inquisitive grey-blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence.

The three of them seemed pleased enough to see the Doctor, and be reunited with each other, but Izzy couldn't help but notice the little confused glances they gave each other.

"Hi, I'm the walking time bomb," he joked, twiddling with the medical band around his wrist as he spoke. The three teens were momentarily caught offguard, before Izzy started to chuckle, and they found themselves laughing along.

"Right, sorry to cut the party short, you four," the Doctor said, picking up his purple jacket and pulling his arms into the sleeves, "but here's where the plan actually comes into play. Well, I say, now..." - he glanced at the pocket watch attached to his waistcoat - "oh, let's say another thirty-seven seconds."

"Thirty-seven seconds until what?" Callum asked.

The Doctor held up a finger to silence them all and then, gently, raised the sonic screwdriver until it was pointing upwards at the ceiling. The four teens looked on, impatiently.

Finally, after about half a minute, the Doctor pressed down on a button, and the screwdriver extended upwards, the claw-like appendages around the green bulb separating outwards as the high-pitched whine sent a beam of green light travelling up and through the ceiling.

"Seven... six... five... oh, you all might want to get down, by the way," the Doctor said, glancing at the four of them quickly before turning to face the wall at the far side of the room.

And then the explosions started.

Lights flickered, dust rained down from crumbling walls and ceilings, and the Doctor gestured for the four teens to follow him towards the wall, as the large cracks that had began to form suddenly shattered, and beams of light started to pierce through.

"What the hell is going on?" yelled Laura over the noise, shielding herself as best she could from the raining debris.

"You'll know soon enough!" the Doctor yelled back. "Now, quickly, follow me!"

And with that, he threw himself through the hole in the wall.

Izzy exchanged a confused look with Callum, as if unsure as to whether the Doctor was being serious, before mentally shrugging, and diving through the gap after him.

* * *

He found himself landing on solid ground almost immediately, and looked up to see he'd only fallen about ten feet. As he watched, the Doctor's three companions also jumped down, until the five of them were together on the dusty wasteland.

"Alright, we're going to have to be quick about this," the Doctor said. "They'll know what's happening any second now."

"Anyone else still completely lost here?" Keith asked, as the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the laser fields on the nearest fence. With a fizzle of power, the pulsating light died away, revealing the odd purple sunset on the horizon.

"I think I get it," Callum said, pointing upwards. They all looked up to see a large spacecraft, perhaps the size of a New York skyscraper that Izzy had once seen a vintage photograph of. It was made out of some sort of black metal, and its entire base was covered in pods and cannons that were blasting at the building. The pods were shooting out of the main area of the craft and zooming around the building, sending laser blasts of red light soaring in all directions.

"_Sontarans?!_" Keith yelled, incredulously. "What the hell are they doing here?"

"Following us," the Doctor said, with the hint of a triumphant grin playing on his lips, "now hurry up back to the TARDIS and I'll explain!"

And with that they were off, bolting through the hole in the fence and off into the wasteland. Izzy was momentarily surprised by how _alive _he suddenly felt, and he found himself beaming widely as his bare feet slapped on the dusty ground; blasts of wind and the warmth of laser fire in the air; the sounds of explosions and laser beams; the roar of the craft's engines; and the happy laughter of the Doctor's three young friends as they tore off through the desert after him, his coat tails flapping in the wind.

He was still smiling as widely when they stopped running at the base of a small rocky outcrop. They were all breathless and covered in dust, but they had the sense to stay standing long enough for the Doctor to snap his fingers, summoning a large blue box as if out of thin air.

"Ah, miss me, girl?" the man gushed, patting the box fondly as he stepped inside. Callum, Keith and Laura followed after, and tentatively, Izzy stepped into the box's interior, only to be absolutely gobsmacked at what he'd come across.

* * *

"Go on," Callum smiled, slouching down on the nearest seat and turning to face Izzy. "Say what you're thinking!"

"It's... it's... it's bigger on the inside," stammered Izzy, suddenly forgetting he was tired and barefoot.

"You bet it is," the Doctor yelled from the console as he began rapidly adjusting flight controls. "Now this is the part where the proverbial hits the fan."

"Why's that?" Laura asked, holding onto one of the control banks for support. The Doctor reached across and flicked a switch, and the door slammed shut behind Izzy.

"Because now the Rutans and Sontarans will be focused on _us_!" the Doctor said, slamming a switch down. Callum, having finally caught his breath, stood up again and joined the Time Lord in getting the TARDIS ready for dematerialisation. "The very second the TARDIS was brought back into real-time, several very large warning lights will have started going off! We need to lose them before it's too late!"

The engines roared into life a moment later, and Izzy found himself holding onto the railing by the door, having been rooted to the spot upon entering the impossible blue box.

"What the heck is going on?!" he yelled over the groan of the machine.

"We're taking off to get to somewhere safe," Keith explained, sitting down on one of the seats beside the control banks – bouncing every so often as the room shook. "This is the TARDIS!"

"It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space!" Laura explained, with a grin on her face.

"And basically," Callum said, reaching over Laura's arm to adjust something, "it can take you anywhere in time and space!"

"Oh, I should keep you three just for the introductions from now on," the Doctor said, as he slid around the console to slam a lever down full force. This seemed to send the room spiralling even faster than before, and Izzy could only liken it to being at the heart of the most wonderful, impossible earthquake ever.

And then the console started to scream.

"Wh-what's that?!" Izzy cried, as the metal screeching intensified and the white and sea-green lighting began to flicker and change to a deep, warning red.

"Ah..." the Doctor stumbled on his words for a moment before coming to a stop and holding up a finger, raising his eyebrows, "that'd be the tractor beams."

"_Tractor beams_?" yelped Keith. "You mean there's more than one?!"

"Well, yes, of course there is, Keith!" the Doctor retorted, throwing his hands up for a moment before turning round and smacking the palm of one hand down on a control. The room lurched, and the metallic groaning of the console made a sound that was the equivalent of mechanical indigestion.

"Sontarans and Rutans," Laura said, moving over to clutch the console, "right?"

"Exactly," nodded the Doctor, "and I think it's rather obvious what they're looking for."

"So what do we do to get out of the tractor beams?" Callum asked. "I'm still a bit of a novice at TARDIS Flying 101!"

"Working on it now!" the Doctor said, groaning as he yanked back on a lever. "Quick time skip should throw the tractor beams off cou-"

With another strange lurch from all around them, the five TARDIS occupants were thrown to the floor as the walls suddenly screeched and seemed to bend inwards slightly, as if someone was striking them with a massive hammer from outside.

"What the hell's going on?" bellowed Keith over the noise, throwing himself forward to grab the console as the room groaned like an ancient submarine.

The Doctor, on his knees, grasped onto the closest part of the console and prodded down on a button. Callum leaped up and tilted the scanner round.

"Temporal shell collapsing!" he cried, reading the screen. "Says here the tractor beams have destabilised fourteen shi-"

An explosion from somewhere far off in the depths of the TARDIS sent them sprawling again, and Izzy found himself up at the console with the others now.

_Tick... tick... tick... tick..._

He suddenly began to feel nauseous, and he clutched his head as he tried to hold on to whatever was nearest.

"Izzy? Izzy? Are you okay?" Laura asked, looking at him worriedly, momentarily oblivious to the collapsing TARDIS.

"My... _head_..." Izzy groaned, the double vision making him feel faint – he barely noticed the room around him now, as he stumbled a little and found himself falling into darkness.

Laura tried her best to hold onto him as the room continued to shriek and groan, the metallic walls slowly caving in further and further. Callum was swinging slightly from the scanner; Keith was holding on to the nearest railing; and the Doctor was weaving in between them all, doing his best to gain some control of the TARDIS.

"Time skiiiiiip!" he roared as he shoved one last switch all the way forwards and the walls suddenly wobbled, shuddered, and then the time rotor flashed with a brilliant white light, and the TARDIS seemed to blast to the left in a way that momentarily left a ghostly motion blur.

A moment later, there was a dull clang, like a hammer smacking a bell for a single second, before the lights changed back from red to the usual green-blue glow.

The Doctor's three companions had been thrown to the floor by the force of the landing, and Izzy still seemed to be unconscious. Callum slowly picked himself back up to see the Doctor flash past him towards the doors in a blur of purple.

"Oh, my head!" groaned Keith, standing up as he rubbed the back of his head, leaving his red hair spiking upwards.

Callum's head turned to the doors when he heard a sudden exclamation of, "Ahh..."

"What is it, Doctor?" he asked, crossing over to the doors that the Doctor had wrenched open.

"We've landed..." the Doctor said – something in his tone immediately setting off alarm bells in Callum's head.

"Where and when?" Callum said, peering out past the worried looking Time Lord.

"This is the Great Space Line Bridge, Callum," the Doctor said, looking incredibly worried.

"And what's that when it's at home?"

"This is the site of one of the biggest bloodbaths in the Sontaran-Rutan war. And it turns out we've lead them right to it."

"What? But, how d'you know that's what's gonna happen today? It could just be a coincidence?"

The TARDIS had landed in the centre of what appeared to be a construction site. The Bridge was apparently not complete, as about fifty feet ahead, the Bridge ended and seemed to lead off into darkness. Pillars of multi-coloured neon lights cast blue, pink and yellow glows across everything, and above them, orange numbers flickered away on a display screen: 938.

"Day 938 since construction began," the Doctor murmured, his brow furrowed. "There's no doubt about it – it's today, Callum! Today is the Battle of the Bridge."


	4. The Apocalypse Boy (Part Four)

"Doctor!" Laura cried, grabbing back the Doctor's attention. "Something's wrong with Izzy!"

The Doctor spun around in a purple blur, crouching down and running a scan on Izzy with the sonic screwdriver. Callum turned and shoved the doors closed and crossed over to join the others.

"Oh, no..." the Doctor murmured under his breath as he glanced at the little green light. "The time skip must have triggered the detonation sequence."

"How long do we have?" gasped Keith. The Doctor rubbed his eyes in thought for a moment and pointed the sonic screwdriver up at the scanner. A moment – and a press of a button – later, the scanner began to display a countdown...

* * *

_21:01_

* * *

"Twenty one hours? So, that's enough time to... do something, right?"

"Oh, Keith," the Doctor groaned, "I wish we had twenty one hours..."

"You mean that's _minutes_?" yelped Keith, as the time flicked down.

"It's alright though," beamed the Doctor, suddenly. "It's when things are at their worst that I come up with my best ideas!" He jumped to his feet. "Ah, this is Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi all over again!"

Rubbing his hands together, he turned to the console and reached underneath the nearest panel, spinning a crank underneath. With several hisses of steam and oscillating whines of power, the dents and tears in the surface of the walls began to flatten and close up again. Only half a minute later, the TARDIS interior looked as good as new.

"Right, okay, that's one thing out of the way! Now, we need to wake Izzy up somehow – might delay the detonation if he's conscious! Laura, Keith, get him up to the medical bay and try and find something up there." He flipped up several switches on the left hand control bank and pointed at the passage that lead further off into the TARDIS as the lights turned purple. "I've set the TARDIS to guide you to it – just follow the purple lights!"

"Okay, got it," nodded Laura. Between the two of them, Keith and Laura were able to pick Izzy up and carry him down the small flight of stairs and off into the passageway off to the maze of corridors beyond.

"Right, what are we gonna do while they do that?" Callum asked, glancing nervously at the countdown on the scanner.

"Oh, Hendrick," the Doctor beamed at him, "we're going to win a war!"

* * *

_19:49_

* * *

Callum had absolutely no idea what the Doctor was planning, but it seemed to involve the counter device and the neon lighting. They were outside the TARDIS in the little construction area, surrounded by large concrete blocks, iron pillars, and thousands of rolled up lengths of wire.

Currently, Callum had several of the large wire rings wrapped around him while the Doctor was unravelling them and hooking them up to several parts of the Bridge's internal systems that he'd been able to uncover through a large steel panel.

"So what exactly is it you're doing?" Callum asked, raising an eyebrow as the Doctor unravelled the next wire loop.

"Oh, y'know..." the Doctor said, airily, "just sort of checking what our options are."

"Hm, so we don't actually have a proper plan?"

The Doctor paused from his work to look up at the boy.

"Hendrick... Callum," - a sad smile crossed his face - "we always come out of it in the end! Why should today be any different?"

Callum took this moment to sit down and lean across the wall, beside the metal panel that the Doctor was fiddling about with, and sighed deeply, gazing upwards into the starry sky.

"I'm just... oh, I don't know," he groaned. "I'm just worried, I suppose."

"And why is that?" the Doctor asked, taking another wire and connecting it into the control panel, his fingers working rapidly as he interlinked wires and switches.

"That... Triangle, and those cloaked people, and whatever it was that happened to me back with the Cybermen!" Callum turned to face the Doctor, a sudden desperation in his eyes. "Doctor, last time I saw you, you said to leave it with you while you investigated what was going on. I've had this biodamper ring on for the past month, and I've been scared that something like what happened with me last time will happen to me again. Please tell me you have some answers."

The Doctor closed his eyes and gently tapped his head off the rim of the metal hatch, before he looked round to face Callum.

"It was all an accident, Callum," he said, smiling reassuringly. "Those strange powers? The Triangle? The cloaked people? It was all an accident! Was never even meant to happen in the first place, but, here's the clever part – it was a complete fluke! You'd been exposed to the time winds when you fell out of the TARDIS and got trapped in that Castle, remember?"

"Y-yeah," Callum nodded, thinking back. "But what about the stuff that had happened before that?"

"The time winds will have doubled back into your past as well," the Doctor explained. "It's nothing important."

_At least not for now..._

"So... that weird stuff shouldn't happen anymore then, right?"

"Exactly," said the Doctor, trying to keep up his reassuring smile. "But, you're best keeping the biodamper on while you're not on Earth, just to prevent anything strange like that happening again."

"Ah, right, 'kay!" Callum nodded. "Cheers, Doctor, I feel a bit better now that I've actually got an answer for all the weird stuff."

_He's lying to me_, Callum thought to himself. He knew the Doctor well enough by now to tell when he was lying. _And that can either mean things are really bad, or he has no idea... Or worse – both._

* * *

_16:59_

* * *

The first alert came only a few moments later, and Callum quickly bolted into the TARDIS to read the scanner, as the countdown was replaced by a proximity alert and flashing red blips as they began to appear in increasing numbers across the screen.

The blue line running down the centre seemed to represent the Bridge, and the small green blip must have been the TARDIS.

On either side of the blue line, from what Callum could gather, there appeared to be at least 50 ships. Running a quick scan with the limited TARDIS controls he could remember, he was able to work out that 50 of the ships to the East were Rutan ships, while the Sontaran ships were all to the West, leaving the TARDIS and its occupants slap bang in the middle.

"We're at the heart of the explosion," the Doctor said, striding into the TARDIS.

"Eye of the storm," nodded Callum. "Wait – if Izzy's detonation sequence runs out before we can get him out of here, would that be contained inside the TARDIS?"

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "If anything it would blow up the TARDIS, and that caused enough trouble last time! Hopefully, if everything goes to plan Izzy won't need to explode anyway!"

"Right... fancy filling me in on the plan any minute now?" Callum asked, prodding the countdown on the scanner. "We've got just under 17 minutes."

"Hm... ah, but look, that number isn't changing!" the Doctor cried. "Keith and Laura must have been able to help him regain consciousness – and even better than slowing the countdown, he's paused it!"

"Oh, yeah!" Callum beamed. "So does that mean we delay the plan?"

"Of course not, Hendrick!" the Doctor cried, aghast. "We can't waste time we might not have!"

And with that, he began leaping around between the console and the two control banks at either side, hastily flipping switches, prodding buttons and adjusting other devices.

"Ah, perfect!" he smiled, flipping out his sonic screwdriver and casually making his way back out the doors. Callum took one last glance at the countdown before he stepped outside, just to confirm it was still stuck on _16:59_.

As he walked away, the last digit began to fluctuate in between _9 _and _8_.

* * *

"C'mon, drink up!" Keith cried, handing Izzy another mug of heated up caffeine drink that he had found in one of the cupboards in the medi-bay. Izzy groaned as he poured back the hot liquid and shuddered at the aftertaste of mango and petrol.

"Okay, okay, I'm definitely awake now!" he sighed. "Must've just been the funny landing, I suppose!"

"I found that mini-scan thingy," Laura said, appearing from one of the cupboards that lead off from the main medi-bay. She was holding a white device that closely resembled a price scanner from a supermarket. It even cast a thin beam of light out of the top part, and Keith gratefully took it and ran it quickly over Izzy.

"Ah, you're a lifesaver, Laura!" Keith beamed, as he ran the thin blue beam of light over Izzy's chest. "Oh."

"What d'you mean 'oh'?" asked Izzy.

Keith was looking at the screen on the little device now, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"It's the cells in your body..." he frowned. "It's as if they're shutting down, bit-by-bit. You're about 15% of the way through the process right now!"

"What happens when it reaches 100?" Laura asked.

"Well, if the Doctor's to be believed," Keith gulped, "I think that's when there's gonna be a very loud bang."

* * *

_16:59/8/9/8/9/8/9/8/?_

* * *

It struck Callum as he stepped out of the TARDIS that he had never seen as many ships gathered in the one space during his travels with the Doctor so far, and he had a moment where he felt a shiver travel up and down his spine, but then the Doctor was fiddling with something and it was enough to fully capture his attention.

"Mic check, mic check, one, two!" the Doctor said into the glowing tip of the sonic screwdriver.

"_MIC CHECK, MIC CHECK, ONE, TWO!_" bellowed back his voice, projected a hundredfold.

"Ah, best adjust that," he mumbled, changing the setting and then repeating himself – this time, his voice was probably only magnified tenfold. "Can everyone hear me?!"

There was no reply.

"Well then, I'm not gonna let that stop me, because I know you can!" He glared upwards and then murmured out of the corner of his mouth, "Rubbish audience," earning a chuckle from Callum. "Right, then, it seems to me like I have something you lot are all rather interested in.

"But, I'm not just gonna hand him over to the first person to come get him, because that'd just be daft! You're both as ridiculous as one another, and frankly I could do without the mess!" He laughed a little hoarsely and adjusted his bow tie. "So here's the deal, and listen carefully, because I'll only offer you it once: you either send one representative of each species down to this Bridge to talk it out with me, and I make a decision, or you all leave this place right now, return home, and forget all about the Apocalypse Boy!"

He paused a moment – either for dramatic effect, awaiting an answer, or just because his throat might have been starting to bother him. Callum wasn't sure which.

"Oh, and one last thing," the Doctor added. "You'll want to think fast, because there's gonna be a rather large explosion in..." - he glanced at his watch - "five minutes."

With that, he pocketed the sonic screwdriver and gestured for Callum to follow him back to the TARDIS.

"That'll have got 'em all worried," he chuckled.

"Why'd you lie and say there was only five minutes?" Callum asked as they stepped back into the console room.

"Ah, because, Hendrick, if there's one thing I've learned in 900 years of travelling the Universe, when negotiations are needed, it's always best to give them a little extra motivation. And a ticking timebomb is a perfect motivator!"


	5. The Apocalypse Boy (Part Five)

**A/N - Hey, I'm real sorry about the late update, but my wi-fi was dead last week, but better late than never, yep!**

**Review-y Reply Bit**

**The10thDoctorRocks** **- Haha, sort of! The messed up counter is because Izzy being conscious messes up with the countdown!**

* * *

The Sontaran's command ship was a flurry of activity as they received the communication through from the Doctor and his human companion.

"This is an outrage," bellowed Commander Skel, smacking his gloved fist down on the nearest surface. "Even with the Time Lord surrounded, we are in no position of power."

"The Rutans have inhabited the entire Eastern side of this quadrant on the opposite side of the Bridge, sir," announced Corporal Harg.

"And the Doctor seems to be telling the truth," Storb said, prodding something on the screen he was working on. A blue ray of light shot upwards, forming a display screen of what was currently on the monitor. "This scan indicates that Sontaran technology is indeed active onboard the Doctor's craft."

"How were we able to see this information?" Skel growled, his eyes narrowing as he read the information hovering on the blue pane of light. "The Doctor's craft is powerful enough to block out all means of scanning."

"He has lowered the security enough that we can register our own technology, sir," explained Storb, gesturing at a small cube of symbols scrolling by on the bottom right hand of the display. "He must mean to show us he is telling the truth."

"Hm... or so it would seem..." Skel turned away to look out of the main viewing window, down at the Great Space Line Bridge.

At this point in time it was just under a million miles long, and it still wasn't complete. It had started on the planet Kaltrium, extending outwards to meet with its twin planet, Kalbrium, over 1.6 million miles away from it. The people of Kaltrium were advanced enough that they had the resources to build the bridge out and still remain in a fixed orbit with the twin planet.

_Such a strange notion_, Skel found himself thinking. _Perhaps in another life I would admire their imagination._

* * *

At the exact same time, on the opposite side of the Bridge, the Rutan mothership was in reasonable calm, in comparison to the wild rushing of the Sontarans.

The Queen was within her tank, plugged into the flight deck of the flagship. All her crew had taken the forms of humanoid species, and they were currently quietly operating devices and composing stratagems. Their shared minds meant they had no need to speak aloud.

_Is it worth obeying the Doctor's commands? He could be lying._

_I had already came to that conclusion, but the Time Lord is a foe we can not risk antagonising any more than we already have._

_You make a logical point. That would be agreeable._

_We obey?_

_It is logical._

_But the matter of the Sontarans is another issue entirely._

_Indeed._

_Do we engage in battle?_

_If it is a logical choice._

_That will depend on the outcome of following the Doctor's commands, yes?_

There was a pause in communication.

_Yes... We must be prepared for whatever outcome we are given._

_That is another logical point._

_Yes._

* * *

_15:44_

* * *

"Right now," the Doctor said, tapping away at a small keypad on the console, "the Sontarans and the Rutans will both be thinking of strategies that result in combat. And the Rutans will all be going on about 'logical points' and repeating themselves a lot." He spun on the spot as he crossed over to one of the control banks. "That's the problem with species with shared minds, Hendrick – incredibly boring."

"Hm, I'll take your word for it," nodded Callum, leaning against the railing casually as if he had all the time in the world – when deep down he knew there was a chance he could be dead in 15 minutes.

"Oh, don't worry – I'll save us by then!" the Doctor was saying, snapping Callum out of his trail of thought. "The way you're looking at me suggests you didn't realise you said that aloud..."

"You'd be right," Callum chuckled, pushing himself away from the railing and over to the console. "Okay then, is it time to fill me in on the plan yet?"

"Hm, no time at all, really," the Doctor frowned. "Best just to go with the flow for now."

"Oh, joy!" He rolled his eyes, yet he was smiling as he did.

"Alright then," the Doctor said, sharing a small smile, "you go get Keith, Laura and Izzy, and be very, _very_ quick."

Callum nodded and bolted off towards the medi-bay.

"Time's a-wastin', Hendrick!" the Doctor called after him.

"Never say that again," Callum laughed back, as he disappeared out of sight, following the corridors lit in purple light.

"Oh, alright," the Doctor murmured in reply, more to himself than to Callum. He furrowed his brow for a moment and then began preparing for what was to come next.

* * *

_13:38/7/8/7/8/7/8/7/?_

* * *

"Countdown's definitely on the blink!" the Doctor announced as the four teens returned to the console room. "Must be Izzy being awake that's interfering with it. As I thought, of course."

"Of course," Laura said, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, but Doctor, here's the thing," Keith said, waving the medical scanner around, "the scan thingy says that Izzy's at 43% of his detonation sequence, even if the countdown's messing up, once this reaches 100% things are gonna get real bad!"

"Right," the Doctor nodded, "so basically what you're saying is we can't trust the countdown?"

"That's about the gist of it," Keith replied, chewing on his lip as he spoke.

"Well, that's a definite issue," the Doctor groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Okay, okay, so we're going to have to speed things up... Callum, Keith, Laura, you three are going to have to do the running!"

"Okay!" the three of them chorused.

"Wait – what am I gonna do?" asked Izzy.

"Well, Izzy, me old mate," the Doctor beamed, "you and I are going to be doing a little bit of acting, manipulation and good old-fashioned bluffing! Here's the plan!"

* * *

_Detonation Sequence: 44%_

* * *

The Doctor and Izzy stepped out of the TARDIS doors, to find three Sontarans and three Rutans from either force standing on separate sides of the Bridge, in full battle gear.

"Ah, it's lovely of you all to come here," the Doctor cried pleasantly, throwing his arms wide as if they were all old friends, rather than opposing forces fighting to wipe the other out.

The Sontarans were all unmasked, but they clutched onto their guns tightly. The Rutans seemed to be unarmed, but Izzy could just make out a thin green ripple of energy around the three of them.

Behind the Doctor and Izzy, the TARDIS gave a small groan. Immediately, the three Sontarans aimed their guns straight at the two of them.

"Woah, woah, woah," the Doctor chuckled, putting his palms up defensively. "Don't mind her – she was just settling!"

* * *

_Detonation Sequence: 48%_

* * *

"D'you reckon they've fell for it?" asked Callum as the TARDIS rocked like a boat through the time vortex.

"The scanner says the façade is working! The Sontarans and the Rutans shouldn't be able to notice we've moved," Laura replied.

"Okay, so how do we go about this?" Keith said, running a hand through his messy red hair.

"We do it like the Doctor explained," smiled Laura. "First, the Sontaran mothership, then the Rutan flagship, and then back to the Bridge!"

"Think we can do it before Izzy... y'know... explodes?" asked Keith.

"Hopefully," nodded Callum, glancing worriedly at the scanner that was now displaying the Detonation Sequence percentage in large red letters. "Got the earpiece ready?"

"Yup," nodded Laura. "Got the Doctor's old sonic?"

"Yep!" echoed Callum. "All ready to risk life and limb?"

"Always," Keith replied, a small grin crossing his face.

* * *

_Detonation Sequence: 52%_

* * *

"Stalemate is not an option!" roared Skel. "You are foolish to suggest it, Doctor."

"We concur," the Rutan representative, the severe-looking woman in the red suit said. She was sporting bruises over one whole side of her face, and there were several tears down her suit. Obviously she had been caught up in the explosion back at the Rutan base.

"Alright, Unit 114, shut up a moment," the Doctor said, holding up a finger to silence her. He turned to the Sontaran. "What did you say your name was?"

"I am Commander Skel, of the Seventh Sontaran Scientific Research Fleet. As an expert in intelligence and warfare it was best decided that I participated in this... meeting."

"Yes, well, warfare is the last concern right now," the Doctor said. "And frankly, this 'meeting', as you so painfully refer to it, is all about preventing a war!"

"Preventing a war is unacceptable!" Skel bellowed. "How dare you impugn the honour of the Sontarans with such a suggestion!"

"Oh, I forgot how _annoying_ you lot are when it comes to this," the Doctor sighed, rolling his eyes. Izzy stifled a laugh.

"That is enough," 114 said, as monotone as ever. "We will take the boy."

"No, you really won't," the Doctor retorted. "We're not done here."

"You know there is no hope of this working," Skel said. "Do not be foolish, Time Lord.

"On the contrary, Izzy's Detonation Sequence is now at 60 percent. Oh, this is Izzy, by the way." He gestured at the blonde-haired boy. "Not that you lot probably knew that."

"This is _irrelevant_!" Skel snapped. "I command you relinquish the boy to the Sontarans at once, Time Lord!"

The Doctor smiled a little.

"You lot never change. All shouting, no perspective."

"So you will be relinquishing the boy to us?" 114 asked.

"Of course not," the Doctor laughed. "Ah, you lot really are missing the obvious, aren't you? Two of the biggest warrior races in the Universe and you can't see what's right in front of you."

"And what would that be?"

The Doctor smirked a little, and pointed upwards, and leaning forwards as if sharing a secret, he said, "Look up."

The three Sontarans and the three Rutans followed the Doctor's pointing finger upwards to the counter above their heads. It had previously read the days since construction began, but now it was flickering and changing to random numbers and letters – faster and faster.

And the lights all across the Bridge followed. The letters and numbers were spreading outwards now, travelling through the strips of lights in a hundred different colours. The entire Bridge was alive now – like a rainstorm of data.

"What is the meaning of this?" cried Skel, snapping up his gun and pointing it straight at the Doctor. "Explain!"

"Your tractor beams got my TARDIS into a bit of trouble, y'see," the Doctor grinned. "The Sontaran command ship and the Rutan flagship, each blasting big old signals right into my TARDIS. I had to use a time skip to escape it, but the thing about my TARDIS is that she's very, _very _good at absorbing information. It only took me a couple of minutes to adapt the entire power system of the Bridge to the signals the TARDIS received from your respective ships."

"Pah! A simple lighting system? What do you expect to do, Doctor?" Skel laughed. "Dazzle us into surrender?"

"Oh, it's much smarter than that," chuckled the Doctor. "This isn't just a simple lighting system, Commander Skel, oh, no, no! This is the entire power system of the largest Bridge in the Universe."

Skel's eyes widened with sudden realisation.

"This is a bluff," 114 said, simply. "You cannot possibly do anything of harm."

"Wait, what?" Izzy cried. "You mean this was all hopeless?"

"114, would you like to explain?" the Doctor said, suddenly looking troubled. He quickly glanced at his watch and then looked back. "What could I have possibly missed?"

"It's quite simple, really," 114 said. "For the link to be complete, there would need to be an active link, and an open broadcast from both of the command ships."

The Doctor gasped and took a step back, turning to look at the TARDIS. He glanced at his watch again and began to mouth numbers as he counted down.

"Twenty, nineteen, eighteen..."

"Enough of this, Doctor," snapped Skel. "Your light show has failed! This has been an act of war, and will _not _be tolerated! You will be executed!"

"Thirteen, twelve, eleven..."

"Surrender the boy to us, Doctor!"

"Doctor?" Izzy asked, uncertainly.

"Seven, six, five..." He turned to face the opposing forces again and snapped his fingers. "Now, you lot! You've made one other big mistake!"

"And what would _that_ be?"

The Doctor's expression became deadly serious, and his tone was full of danger at his next words: "Your biggest mistake... is that you underestimated me." With that, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver and roared into it, "TARDIS, come in! This is the Doctor! Are you receiving?"

"_Oh, shut up_," laughed Callum's voice, seeming to come from all around them. "_But, aye, this is the TARDIS, receiving loud and clear!_"

"In position?" the Doctor asked, gazing upwards into the sky at the spaceships that were hovering on either side.

"_Any second now! Got to drop the façade first to rematerialise though,_" Callum replied. "_Anytime you feel like dropping it!_"

"Ah, of course," smirked the Doctor, taking the sonic screwdriver away from his mouth and pointing it at the TARDIS shell behind him. With a quick sonic buzz, the blue box flickered momentarily before completely disappearing.

"What is this treachery?!" roared Skel.

And then, impossible gusts of wind began to rise, travelling outwards from the spot behind the Doctor. Izzy's hair and the Doctor's coat flapped in the strong breeze, and the Doctor smiled ecstatically as the blue box materialised out of thin air, in exactly the same spot that the façade had stood only seconds before.

There was complete silence on the Bridge for several seconds...

...and then the TARDIS doors swung wide open and Callum, Keith and Laura strode out, smiling triumphantly. Callum was holding a small control device, and he waved it a little as he leaned against the side of the doorframe.

"Gift for you," he chuckled, handing the device to the Doctor.

"Ah, too kind," the Doctor nodded, before turning back to the gathering. "You all know how this works! My clever friends here have just completely disabled the security of both of your command ships, and we've got the power and the resources to completely cripple both of your fleets. Now, I'll be expecting your complete surrender any second now."

"You forget we are armed, Time Lord," 114 said, the green field of light suddenly becoming less transparent – small volts of electricity travelled across the surface of the light field. The Sontarans raised their guns to aim straight at the assembled group.

"Oh, 114," the Doctor said quietly, looking to the ground for a moment, "Skel, you lot are supposed to be war geniuses, but it's just mistake after mistake with all of you!" He looked up. "Right now, I have my TARDIS hooked up to two _entire_ war fleets. How many cannons, lasers, death fields, explosion pods and doomsday devices do you have on each fleet? Think the six of you with your couple of weapons can have any hope against the countless thousands you've got?"

"I... I..."

"We..."

"Yes, I thought that might be your response," the Doctor smirked. "Now, I'll give you lot ten seconds to teleport back onto your respective ships and butt off. Or do I need to rip every single ship out of the sky?"

"You are bluffing, Doctor!" Skel snapped. "Your ultimate weakness is your mercy."

"No such luck," the Doctor retorted. "I used to have so much mercy, but that was a long, _long_ time ago. You have five seconds."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Five... four... three..."

"Doctor!" warned Skel.

"Doctor!" 114 said, her calm aura suddenly dissipating.

"_This is your last chance!_" roared the Doctor, angrily.

There was a sudden rapid bleeping from behind the Doctor and Keith gasped.

"The Detonation Sequence is at 90!"

All eyes turned to look back at Keith, while the Doctor's thumb hovered over the switch.

"Well then, Doctor," Skel said, suddenly sounding rather pleased. "It would seem the tables have turned. The Detonation Sequence is irreversible at this stage."

"Indeed," 114 said, brushing down an invisible crease in her red suit, and regaining some composure.

"I warned you," the Doctor said, venomously. "You lead me to this."

He slammed down on the button and there was a roar of power. With a flash of blue-purple to the left, and a flash of green to the right, the six aliens disappeared.

"You sent them back to their ships then, right?" Callum asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "And I've made an example of them."

Every light on the Bridge cut off – the raining strings of letters and numbers completely gone, and the Doctor, Izzy, Callum, Keith and Laura were left standing in darkness, besides the slight green glow emanating from the TARDIS interior.

Everything was silent, as they looked up at the two motionless fleets.

And then the two ships at the head of each fleet were suddenly lost in flame, illuminating the Bridge in orange and yellow light for several long moments, before the ships seemed to plummet out of the sky, falling down into the void of space.

The four teens ran to the edge of the Bridge, watching in shock as the two ships continued falling, further and further out of sight until they were completely lost.

The Doctor stood motionless for a moment, before he held the sonic screwdriver up to his mouth and broadcast upwards to the two fleets.

"_This battle is over._"

The four simple words were enough to send shivers up Callum's spine as he turned to look at the Time Lord, illuminated by the glow of fire and framed by the green light from the TARDIS. The Doctor had never seemed so dangerous, and powerful, and... alien.

With a sudden rumble of power, and multiple flashes of light, every single ship in the sky blasted away at lightspeed, hurtling off in opposite directions. This took a matter of seconds, and soon enough the Bridge was plunged into almost complete quiet, as the four teens and the Doctor stood on the edge and looked up at the silent sky, a thousand stars shining down on them.

Then the silence was punctured by the rapid bleeping sound from the device Keith clutched in his hand.

"Doctor!" he cried, as they all turned to look at him, sudden realisation dawning on them all. "We're at 95!"

"TARDIS," the Doctor yelled. "Now!"

They didn't need telling twice, and moments later, the Great Space Line Bridge was deserted.

The official report would say that the damage to the power supplies were so drastic that construction could not possibly continue, and the Bridge was never completed...

* * *

_Detonation Sequence: 96%_

* * *

The Doctor wheeled around the console rapidly, and the TARDIS seemed more alive than it had ever been.

"They said it was irreversible, Doctor!" Izzy cried, grabbing onto the railing and trying not to let the horrible ticking noise that was suddenly so loud within him completely overwhelm him.

"Irreversible has a very loose definition," the Doctor replied, flipping up a switch and rushing to smash down on several buttons.

"You realise that the definition of 'irreversible' is that something can't possibly be reversed, don't you?!" Keith cried, gripping on tightly to the nearest control bank.

"Ah, exactly!" the Doctor said, a manic grin suddenly filling his green-lit face. "You just said the key word!"

"What?" frowned Callum. "Sorry, did I _miss _something?!"

"He said 'can't possibly'!" Laura realised.

"Exactly, Laura," the Doctor beamed, ducking under the console and coming back holding a familiar rubber mallet, before smashing it down on the closest panel as he spoke, "He. Said. _Possibly._"

With a boom from deep within the TARDIS, the console suddenly flared with orange light, as if it was burning from within.

"Doctor, what the hell are you doing?!" Callum yelled, as the ship was suddenly becoming more volatile, lurching erratically, as if it was smacking off the sides of a wall while travelling at a million miles per hour. The orange light was getting brighter and brighter now.

"A thing, Hendrick! A _thing_!" the Doctor roared, gleefully. "Just got to hope there's definitely enough dormant power cells to fry things up a bit!"

"What are you on about?!" cried Laura as the orange light seemed to come alive and spill out of the time rotor, sending blasts of air rippling around the room.

The entire console room was alive now! Electricity sparked and crackled in the air as the time rotor gave an almighty roar, and everything seemed to suddenly be shuddering, vibrating, pulsating, wobbling, exploding, and going completely insane. The Doctor stood at the heart of it all, waving his arms around like a conductor and smashing down on the control panel in front of him.

"Doctor, you best explain, because I'm really starting to _freak out_!" Callum bellowed over the noise.

"I'm draining every last bit of power, Hendrick!" the Doctor called back. "Flooding it right back in through the heart of the TARDIS through the entire Matrix! Hopefully that should be enough to do it..."

"Enough to do _what_?!" the four teens roared back in unison.

"Enough to implode the console room _and _enable the life support, of course!" the Doctor called back, as the entire room suddenly seemed to shrink inwards. "Ah! That'll be the implosion starting now!"

"_DOCT-_"

It was too late to finish his cry, as there was a sudden, final flash of light, and Callum found himself plunged into a void of nothing.


	6. The Apocalypse Boy (Part Six)

**A/N - Here's the last part of The Apocalypse Boy!**

* * *

_Detonation Sequence: ?_

* * *

Callum had entered the dreamworld he could never remember. It seemed so long ago since he'd last dreamt of this place. These people.

There was only two people here this time. Tyger and Will.

Tyger looked the same as ever, his black hair streaked with blonde, wearing the blood-red cloak over a grey-white flak vest jacket and black three-quarter length shorts.

Will was pretty plainly dressed in comparison, wearing a pair of Space Invader pyjama trousers and a large oversized white T-shirt. He was a short boy, with messy brown hair that fell past his shoulders, and large pale blue eyes with dark bags under them as if he hadn't slept in a long while.

Though if he was here then he must be asleep.

"Ah, Callum!" Tyger cried, happily. "It's been like a week! Are you asleep or unconscious this time?"

"Um, well, that's the thing..." Callum chuckled. "I'm not actually sure whether I'm even alive."

"How do you mean?" Will murmured. He always spoke quietly, but Callum put that down to him always seeming to be tired.

"Well, I'm back on the TARDIS again, and we had rescued this boy, who had been converted into a bomb by the Sontarans but then he got messed about a little by the Rutans and it made him unstable and stuff..." He paused for a moment, catching the confused faces of the two boys. "Okay, long story short, the Doctor imploded his ship to somehow stop Izzy from exploding and I may or may not currently be dead."

"Well, that _does _sound like a predicament," Tyger nodded. "You have some really bad luck, Callum."

"Don't I know it," Callum agreed, chuckling. "Anyway, have either of you heard from the others lately?"

"Yeah," Tyger nodded. "I've actually been in the Temple meditating at every opportunity – it gets me into the same state as sleeping, so I've been able to keep checking in on this place at least twice a day. That's all eight of us doing fine, besides your 'death' situation."

"Well, that's reassuring," Callum said. "Probably."

"Callum, you appear to be fading away," Will said, raising a pale finger and pointing straight at him. "So either you're moving onto the afterlife or you might actually be alive."

"Well, let's hope it's the second one, ay?"

"Here's hoping, buddy!" Tyger said, cheerfully. "Good luck!"

"Thanks, Tyger," laughed Callum. "I'll definitely need i-"

* * *

"-ndigo Plateau!" Callum spluttered, jerking upright.

"Indigo what now?" a familiar voice said from beside him. He looked round to see the Doctor standing only a few feet away, having just exited from the TARDIS. He wasn't wearing his jacket, and he'd rolled his shirtsleeves up.

"I'm not sure," Callum admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Must've had a funny dream... _Hey, wait a sec! I'm alive!_"

"Of course you are," the Doctor nodded, smiling a little as he leaned in the doorframe of the blue box. "Did you think I'd do something as reckless and irresponsible as get us all blown up on a hunch?"

"That was a _total_ hunch and don't even try to deny it!" Callum laughed, pushing himself up off the sand he had been lying in. "So, fancy explaining what the hell you even did? And where the others are while you're at it."

"Oh, Hendrick, always wanting the answers straight away," the Doctor smiled. "Well, to put it in a nutshell, I did what I already told you – I diverted every dormant bit of power, and the residual power absorbed from the Bridge and brought it into the TARDIS' main control banks and told it to implode the main console room. At the exact same time I managed to drain enough into the life support systems that we were just trapped in a time bubble that rendered us comatose and completely safe while the TARDIS got all implodey-wodey. I timed it for the exact moment that Izzy was due to explode, and due to my clever Time Lord mind, I was able to use the implosion of the TARDIS to prevent the explosion from Izzy, because they were at the heart of each other."

"So the implosion and the explosion cancelled each other out?" reasoned Callum, rubbing the back of his head to free some sand that had got caught in his hair.

"Exactly! Well done," the Doctor said, nodding approvingly. "I'd also programmed the TARDIS to take us to the Sandsphere while we were all still in the time bubble, so we could drop Izzy off as soon as we all woke up. Now that the Detonation Sequence has expired, and the explosion has technically happened, every biological trick they put on him has been completely wiped from his body. As if it never even happened."

"That's pretty smart!" Callum beamed, sitting down on the edge of blue wood outside the door. "Okay, so all the smart Time Lord-y stuff's been explained. But where are the others?"

"Keith and Laura woke up about half an hour ago," the Doctor said. "Izzy was up about five minutes later. They decided to take him back to his village just over the hill there while I waited on you to come round. Had to shift you outside while the old girl repairs herself a little. Implosions tend to take it out on her a bit." He patted the doorframe affectionately and cooed, "I'm sorry, dear."

"Well, now that I'm awake should we go join 'em?" Callum asked, standing up again. "I'm judging by the light show from inside that we've got some time to burn."

"Good idea, Hendrick," the Doctor agreed. "Come along." He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and walked around the side of the TARDIS, up towards a grassy hill just above the sand dune the blue box had materialised in.

Callum smiled contently to himself, gave the TARDIS a little pat, and followed the Time Lord across the sand.

* * *

**Next week: Meanwhile in the TARDIS - the Prelude to ****_Day of the Drowned_****!**


	7. Meanwhile in the TARDIS 9

**A/N - Hey, so here it is on schedule for once! The ninth Meanwhile in the TARDIS!**

* * *

"Pssst," someone hissed in Callum's ear, slowly rousing him. He groaned and went to sit up, panicking as he found himself almost nose-to-nose with a familiar face.

"Izzy?!" Callum yelped, scrambling back in his bed. The cheery blonde-haired boy stayed in the same position, leaning over the bed. "What the hell are you doing in... my room for starters!"

"Oh, I'm a stowaway," Izzy said, matter-of-factly, grinning from ear-to-ear.

"You hid onboard?" Callum replied incredulously, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"That's what a stowaway does, right?" Izzy shrugged, sitting down on the bed with his legs folded under him.

"Wh-why though? When the Doctor and I found Keith and Laura they said you'd walked off and went back home."

"Yeah, that was a bit naive on their part, right? And anyway, do I need a reason?" Izzy said, shrugging again. "You guys seem like fun, that's all. So anyway, how about you shove over a little so I can get some room?"

"Wh-_what_?! You sneak onboard and then you want to share my bed?!" Callum gawped. "What the heck is wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," pouted Izzy, mockingly. "But I've just spent the past three hours in a broom cupboard, and I'm sleepy now, so shove over!"

"Don't you think you should go speak to the Doctor?" Callum replied, not budging an inch.

"Why?" Izzy frowned.

"Well, he's the designated driver," Callum pointed out. "And you can't just sneak onboard and then expect to stay!"

"Oh, Callum, please don't make me go find him just now," whined Izzy, pulling the covers aside. "I'm _sleeeeeepy!_"

"Oi, no, sorry, what're you doing?! You're not getting in with me," Callum protested.

"But I can't sleep in with the other two," Izzy said, pouting again. "There's no room for three people in a double bed – c'mon, _pleeeeease?_"

Callum bit back a reply, and with one final glare at the blonde-haired boy, he pushed himself over to the other side of the bed and faced the wall. He felt Izzy move in beside him and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, by the way," Izzy said, "I snore."

_I'm going to kill him,_ Callum's internal monologue groaned.

* * *

The next morning, Callum woke to find that Izzy had already left the room, after apparently taking his time rifling through his drawers for clothes.

Twenty minutes later, after a quick shower and a change of clothes from the boxers and t-shirt he had worn to bed, Callum found himself in the console room. Fortunately, when the TARDIS had redesigned itself, it had kept his room in the same condition it had been when he had last been onboard, and, even more fortunately, hadn't moved itself any further away from the console room.

"Ah, Hendrick, there you are," the Doctor called. "Izzy here was just telling me how you were kind enough to let him borrow some clothes."

"Oh," Callum said simply as he climbed the small set of stairs to the main console. "That's funny – I don't remember saying that at all."

"You sort of mumbled it in your sleep," Izzy said, standing beside the Doctor with a large grin on his face. "You're a real restless sleeper, y'know – I think I've got bruises."

"Hmph, least you deserve for stowing away," Laura chuckled as she appeared behind Callum. "You woke me up last night – well, more accurately, Callum woke me up with his yell when _you _woke _him_ up!"

"I bet Keith didn't even flinch in his sleep," Callum laughed.

"Of course he didn't," Laura replied, laughing too.

"That doesn't solve the problem of what we're gonna do with him though," Keith pointed out, also appearing through the tunnel leading further off into the TARDIS. "More trouble than he's worth!"

"Yeah, but you have to admit I'm pretty fun!" Izzy beamed. "And cute too, of course, but that goes without saying."

"I don't think I'll be able to live with this," Keith groaned.

"42nd century boy," the Doctor said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Seriously, the further off into the future, the loonier your species gets."

"Oi!" the four teens protested in unison, making the Doctor chuckle.

"Well, seeing as he's already here," the Doctor said, "I don't see any problem in having a quick trip somewhere before we decide whether or not he stays or goes!"

"Are you sure about this?" Callum asked, arching an eyebrow as Izzy's almost constant smile grew wider and toothier.

"Probably not," the Doctor admitted, fidgeting with a strand of hair that had fallen in his face. "But, eh, we have all the time in the universe, why not?!"

With that, he yanked down a lever and set the TARDIS off, hurtling off into the time vortex. Izzy's grin was suddenly infectious, and the three young companions and the stowaway held on tight as the ancient engines sent the little blue box hurtling off across time and space.

* * *

**Next time: ****_Day of the Drowned (Parts 1 and 2)_**


	8. Day of the Drowned (Part One)

**A/N - Hey, here's Episode 10! Uh, next week I'll only be able to post the one chapter, as opposed to two like I've been trying to do... but yeah, enjoy!**

* * *

Izzy stepped out the TARDIS doors and laughed ecstatically.

"Okay, now that's cool!" he cried. Callum, Keith and Laura followed after him, a salty sea breeze hitting them straight away. They seemed to be on the deck of a large steel boat, and the TARDIS had materialised next to a large pile of crates.

"Ahhh, smell that sea air!" the Doctor said happily, striding out of the TARDIS as he pulled on his grey jacket. He locked the door behind him and joined his four young companions at the railing, looking across the rich violet-blue ocean.

It was early evening, by the look of the purpley-orange sky above them, and the bright orange glow across the water indicated that they were at the wrong side of the ship to see the sun set.

"Where are we then, Doctor?" asked Laura, leaning on the railing and gazing out at the horizon, her hair waving gently in the breeze.

"Not completely sure," the Doctor admitted, putting his hands in his pockets. "Earth in the near future. Maybe 2500 or so."

"That's _near _future?" Keith chuckled.

"Well, it's less than 500 years in the future," Callum pointed out, rolling up the sleeves of his red zip hoodie. "We've been to the year 2,000,000,000, remember."

"Oh yes, love a good billion," the Doctor cried, before adding: "Or two... Shame they'd stopped making fish fingers by then, of course."

"Because the fish people on the Aquarian Constellates thought it was offensive," Callum remembered. Izzy looked up and laughed.

"Y'know, I'm from the 42nd century and I still think some of the stuff you lot say is weird," he said, rubbing the back of his neck as he craned his neck to look up into the sky. "So this is Earth then? Not like I imagined it."

"I thought you were _from _Earth?" Keith laughed. Izzy shook his head.

"Nah, I'm from a colony world," Izzy said. "SandSphere. This old woman, Sylvia, was the only original colonist from Earth, and she used to tell all the kids stories about it, and all the places she'd been when she lived here. She was a funny old lady." He smiled fondly, his eyes suddenly going distant. "Really didn't like peacocks though."

"_Peacocks?_" the Doctor echoed, looking at him amusedly. Keith burst into a fit of laughter and fell to the deck, clutching his sides. Laura rolled her eyes and Callum felt himself laughing along too.

"Oi, what are you doing onboard this ship?" roared a voice from nearby. Keith stopped laughing and scrabbled to his feet as the others turned to see a grey-haired man in a blue uniform approaching them.

"Ah, hello there!" the Doctor said, walking over to the man. "We're here about... uh," - he looked a little unsure for a moment – "the thing."

"The _thing_?" the man replied, reaching up a hand to smooth out his thick grey mustache.

"Er... yes! The thing!" the Doctor nodded, sounding a little more sure of himself. He dug in the pockets of his jacket before he produced a thin leather wallet and passed it to the man, who took it with a small frown. The man read it a moment before he cleared his throat slightly and nodded.

"Ah, yes, I see now," he said. "Special recruits for our mission? I thought I'd have received a heads up!"

"Oh, so you're the captain?" the Doctor asked as he took the thin wallet from the man and pocketed it.

"That I am," the man nodded. "Captain Archibald Pettigrew of S.S. Anne."

"Isn't that the ship from the first Pokemon games?" whispered Keith to Callum. Callum nodded in reply, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Ah, yes, well, excellent," the Doctor was saying. "Perhaps the message just hasn't reached yet! Y'see, we don't _actually _know what we're... special recruits... for, exactly."

"You better come below deck then," Captain Pettigrew said, before his gaze was drawn to the three confused looking teens standing in front of the TARDIS. "Will your young associates be joining you?"

"Y-"

"Oh, yes," Izzy cried, cutting off the Doctor and throwing his arms out with a dramatic flair. "We're his proteges. He ain't allowed to go anywhere without us!"

"Um, yes, that," the Doctor said, blinking in confusion. Captain Pettigrew gave a stiff nod and began to walk along the deck with the Doctor close behind. The four teens followed after them, Keith and Laura hand-in-hand.

"So what was that wallet-y thing the Doctor showed him?" Izzy murmured to Callum as they made their way along the deck, navigating their way past barrels and large thick ropes.

"Psychic paper," Callum explained. "Let's people see whatever the Doctor – or themselves – wanna see."

"Ooh, fancy," Izzy smiled. "I could think of a few handy uses for that."

"All of them illegal, I'm sure," Keith chuckled.

"Aye, and you're only sure cos you thought the exact same thing," Laura smirked, earning her a defensive pout from the redhead.

"Oi, I thought girlfriends were supposed to be nice!" he whined.

"I'm always nice," she replied, matter-of-factly, as they followed the Captain and the Doctor down a flight of stairs to below deck.

"Can't say the same about her cooking," Keith whispered to Callum, out of Laura's earshot. Callum stifled a laugh by disguising it as a cough and Izzy gave him a funny look as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

* * *

There was already eight other people in the room they'd entered sitting around a large square table. They all turned to look at the four newcomers as the Captain stepped round the table and sat down. The Doctor aimed a smile at the group around the table and Callum, Keith and Laura gave nervous waves. Izzy was too busy inspecting the food bar they were standing in front of.

"Who are this lot, Captain?" asked a young looking woman. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, with brown hair tied back in a ponytail with a pair of thin framed glasses perched on her nose.

"Ah, yes, introductions, sorry!" the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor, and these three are my friends-"

"And associates," Izzy added.

"Yes, and associates," the Doctor echoed, rolling his eyes. "Callum Hendrick, Keith Whyte, Laura McKinroy and Izzy Seven. We're the special recruits for the mission."

"Yo!" Izzy beamed, flashing a peace sign.

"Yeah, hey!" Callum smiled, giving another little wave. Keith and Laura did the same again.

"We already have a doctor onboard," a man with a Texan accent drawled. He had a heavyset brow and messy ash blonde hair.

"Yes, well, I'm not really a medical doctor," the Doctor replied, wringing his hands together. "More of a doctor of science, I suppose you could say."

"Don't need one of those either," the Texan said, wrinkling his nose in a disinterested way. "We've already got Tammy."

"Yes, well, Marcus," Captain Pettigrew cut in, "these are the specially chosen operatives who'll be accompanying us. The company have chosen them specifically for this mission."

"Exactly," Izzy smirked, as the Texan – Marcus – grunted, crossing his arms and closing his eyes.

"Anyway," Pettigrew said, "I think we all better introduce ourselves as well."

"Tammy Kami, head scientist," said a middle-aged Australian woman to the captain's left. Two thin blue lines curved down from the outside corners of her eyes to the outside corners of her mouth, as if they'd been drawn on with a thick blue marker.

"Z-ZoZo Fourteen, t-trainee scientist! Nice to meet you!" stuttered a red-haired girl sitting next to Tammy. She was probably only a year or two older than Callum at most. Her long red hair was held with a black hairclip and she had a pair of thick framed black glasses hung on the neck of the lilac vest T-shirt she was wearing.

"Marcus Jones, soldier," drawled the Texan, not bothering to open his eyes.

"Fergus Ferguslie Ferguson, soldier," said a young man sitting to the left of Maxie. His black hair was gelled into messy spikes and he gave a cheesy wink as he spoke, earning a roll of the eyes from Izzy. "Nice to have some new faces onboard!

"Erica Kane, doctor," the woman with the brown ponytail smiled warmly before gesturing to the young boy – probably the same age as ZoZo – who was sitting to her left. "This is Felix Kamiya. He doesn't talk very much, so please don't think he's just being rude. He's my understudy from the University of Alaska."

There was something unsettling about the way Felix inspected each of them with his large blue eyes that made Callum want to shiver. The boy's hair was short and neatly cropped and the plain white shirt he wore was buttoned up completely.

"John McLaren, computer specialist," boomed a large Scottish man sitting to the left of Felix, interrupting Callum's train of thought. John reminded him of a smaller, ginger-haired Hagrid, minus the beard.

"Sheila McLaren, and I'm just the chef around here," smiled a portly little rosy-cheeked woman. She had brown hair that she had tied in a messy bun and she was wearing a red and white chequered apron over a pale yellow blouse with the sleeves rolled up. "Welcome aboard!"

"Lovely to meet you all, I'm sure," the Doctor beamed, clapping his hands together. "May we sit?"

"Oh, yes, of course, my loves!" Sheila gasped, gesturing at the empty seats around the table. "You must be exhausted after being beamed here! Would you like a cuppa?"

"No time, Sheila," Captain Pettigrew replied before the others could say anything as they sat down. "Apparently our new recruits haven't been informed on what this mission will actually entail, so we've only really got enough time to go over it and then get on with it!"

"Ah, alright then, Captain," nodded the rosy-cheeked woman, settling herself down again next to her husband.

"Lights," barked the captain, and an instant later, the room was in darkness. After a moment there was a quiet buzz and a blue hologram appeared in the centre of the table, spilling blue light over everyone's faces. The hologram seemed to be of a sprawling complex of rooms and tunnels, with some of these tunnels destroyed or just completely gone.

"Oh, what's all that then?" the Doctor asked, inspecting the hologram with avid curiosity.

"Looks like some kinda base thingy," Keith said.

"Good eye, lad," Captain Pettigrew said. "This is the Fortuna Major Base established one year ago, right beneath us."

"An undersea base, aye?" Callum asked.

"Yup," Erica replied, with a smile so enthusiastic it could rival Izzy's.

"And we get to go down there?" he beamed.

"Some of us, yes," Pettigrew replied. "I'll have to decide what to do with your little group once you all know the mission objective."

"Ah, yes, of course," nodded the Doctor. "I think it's safe to assume something happened to the Base, then, yes?"

"Yes," Pettigrew replied, reaching out and flicking something on the hologram, which suddenly changed to show a video recording of a woman. "This transmission was received three days ago." He pressed it again and the video began to play.

"_H-hello? Is anyone receiving me? This is Julia Anderson of the Fortuna Major Undersea Base, over!_" the woman was saying. The screen kept flickering and she looked incredibly distressed. Her next sentence was drowned out by a burble of white noise, and static interrupted the visual before it snapped back into place again and she said, "_The captain is dead, over. I think we have three casualties. Someth-_" - she was cut off by static again - "_-board, over. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Over. Hello? He-_" Her last words were cut off by a sudden scream and the video cutting off.

"So what happened there then?" Keith frowned.

"The main tunnel sprung a leak and flooded the central chamber. The systems that usually prevent that from happening had went offline," Captain Pettigrew said, the blue light of the holograms illuminating his grave expression.

"So wait, how do we get down there if it's all flooded?"

"Drainage systems will have kicked in," Izzy said, leaning over and pressing the hologram, bringing up the blueprints of the base. He started moulding about the image with his hands, zooming in and adjusting things incredibly fast. The crew looked at him in awe, and the Doctor looked impressed. Keith – in contrast – blew an unimpressed raspberry and rolled his eyes.

"Where'd you learn to operate this sort of machinery, lad?"

"Oh, about two thousand years from now," shrugged Izzy, as he finally settled the image on a large circular structure, seemingly the centre of the water base. "See, there's an override in the main emergency support chamber that works as a back up in case of total emergencies. Seems that all the Sontarans and Rutans messing about with me has gave me some smarts..."

"Yes, well, anyway," the Doctor cut in, before Izzy could say anything more to suggest they were time travellers, "it looks like that back up kicked in according to these readings." He brandished his sonic screwdriver and ran it over the hologram image. "Hm, yeah, everything seems perfectly fine. No organic material detected though... Now that _is_ curious."

"What?" Callum frowned, his face glowing in the light emanating from the hologram. "As in no bodies?"

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "No bodies..."

"Which means...?" Laura questioned, perched up on her elbows.

"Well, that's the mystery of it all," shrugged Erica.

"And now you're completely up to date on what the mission is. We're sending a small group down while the rest stay up here to monitor progress," Pettigrew said.

"I wanna go down!" Callum, Keith and Izzy said in unison.

"Now, now!" Pettigrew said, waving a hand to silence them. "As there are five of you, I'll ask that three of you go down while two remain here."

"Oh, c'mon, Doctor, let us three go down!" Izzy pleaded. The Doctor rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"No such luck, Izzy," he replied. "I need to go down, which means two of you'll come down and two of you'll stay here."

"We could take the TA-" started Keith, before he earned a nudge in the ribs from Laura, and a sharp look from Callum and the Doctor. The crew of the ship had all turned to look at him expectantly. The room was silent for a moment before Keith managed to awkwardly say, "I completely forgot what I was about to say."

"Anyway, Captain," the Doctor said, "if you'd be as kind as to inform me on which of your crew will be going down..."

"That'd be me, Zozo, Marcus, Erica and Felix," said Tammy. "I'm assuming that'll affect which of your young... associates will be accompanying us?"

"Of course," smiled the Doctor, turning to look at Keith. "And Keith really isn't going to like my decision."

* * *

"Have fun and don't die," Laura told Callum, giving him a quick hug before he stepped into the WaterShaft. She gave Izzy a hug too and he found himself blushing a little, before he followed Callum into the WaterShaft – the large glass cylinder that would teleport them down into the Base.

The Doctor was having a quick word with Captain Pettigrew before he nodded and quickly stepped into the cylinder.

"Okay, you two," he said to Keith and Laura, "look out for each other! You should be able to get in touch with Callum over the phone, but if that doesn't work, you know how to reach us."

"Understood," Keith said, giving him a mock salute.

"You three look out for each other down there," Laura said.

"Of course we will," Callum smiled. "No need to worry!"

"See, that's what you always say before the situation turns really worrisome," Keith joked. "There are sentences you should really stay away from, y'know!"

"Oh, shut up," laughed Callum, as Tammy – the last member of the little expedition team – stepped into the WaterShaft. The door of the cylinder slid over, and the Doctor gave Keith, Laura and the crew outside the cylinder a cheerful nod. Izzy and Callum each gave little waves before there was a sudden blinding flash of light...

* * *

...and they found themselves standing in an indentical transparent glass cylinder in a dimly lit room that could easily pass for a storage closet.

As the door slid open and Callum's head stopped spinning, he realised that they were, in fact, in a storage closet.

"Main section is only a few corridors away from here," said Tammy, tapping away on a small handheld computer. Hovering over the screen was a hologram displaying a map of the base. It seemed to stretch on for quite a while across the seafloor, maybe even as long as the High Street in Glasgow that Callum found himself regularly walking along to get the train home from the coffee shop. He couldn't be sure – he was rubbish with scale.

"Door system's fused," Marcus said, running a finger along the edge of the steel door. There was a keypad next to it, and Izzy immediately crossed over to it, chewing on his lip thoughtfully.

"Gimme a minute and I'll have this sorted," he said.

"Pah, as if! These door controls are helluva sophisticated! Ain't no kid gonna be getting that working!" Marcus smirked.

"Couldn't you just sonic it?" Callum murmured to the Doctor, out of earshot of the others.

"I could," nodded the Doctor, slipping his hand into the pocket of his grey jacket and withdrawing the sonic screwdriver. "But I want to see just how much Izzy can do after his... programming."

"I thought the TARDIS had purged all of that stuff out of his body though? Shouldn't he be completely normal now?"

"There's always a little bit of something left behind," the Doctor shrugged. "Seems that Izzy's inherited increased intelligence."

"So he's been superpowered?" asked Callum, raising an eyebrow as he smiled.

"A surprisingly accurate description, Hendrick," the Doctor nodded. "I suppose that's his reward for his ordeal."

"Got it!" Izzy cried, stepping back from the door as it clunked and swung open, catching Marcus offguard and swatting him into the wall. He gawped in surprise at the blonde-haired boy, while Izzy beamed victoriously at the others.

"Not bad, Izzy!" the Doctor praised. "Not bad at all! Shall we?"

"After you," Erica said, gesturing for them to lead. The Doctor gave her a polite nod and stepped out into the corridor – Callum and Izzy right behind him.

The corridor was initially in darkness when they stepped out of the closet, but in a matter of seconds, there was a slam from a nearby generator and strips of light on the ceilings and under the floor grilles flickered into life.

And the first thing the small group saw when the lights went up was the body lying only a few feet to the left hand of the door, face down on the floor.

"Anybody else getting a sinking feeling?" Izzy quipped, none of them taking their eyes off the body.


	9. Day of the Drowned (Part Two)

The Doctor had ran a quick medical scan over the body with the sonic screwdriver, then looked up and shook his head. Erica kneeled down to join him, observing as he worked.

"No sign of life for a very, _very_ long time," he murmured, straightening up and pocketing the screwdriver.

"Do we move the body?" whispered Zozo, as if she was afraid to raise her voice. She was shaking a little, and she seemed to be resisting an urge to bite her nails.

"I'll have to run some more tests on the body to determine a cause of death," Erica said. "Felix, you have everything?"

The mute boy nodded. Out of all of them, his reaction to the discovery of the body was the most calm. His expression remained blank the entire time as he crossed over to Erica, and took a green rucksack off of his back and undid the flap.

"Right then," Tammy said, addressing the group, "we'll head on to the main section while Erica and Felix work." She turned to the two medical crew. "If, or when you need us, just follow this corridor and take your... second left."

"Yes, ma'am," nodded Erica with a mock salute, as Tammy gave a small smile and began to walk off in the opposite direction. The Doctor gave a quick look back, worried for a moment, before he followed after her. Marcus and Zozo followed close behind, with Callum and Izzy bringing up the rear.

"So... this sort of thing's pretty regular for you lot then?" asked Izzy, brushing some hair from out of his face with his hand. "Turn up, investigate, save the day, pop off, and repeat?"

"That's it in a nutshell," admitted Callum. "We get quiet days too though! Great thing about a time machine is that you can go on holiday for as long as you like and still come back in time for dinner."

"How long've you been doing that for then?" Izzy asked, his cerulean eyes ablaze with curiosity.

"Hm, on and off for about two years," Callum replied. "The Doctor's a bit rubbish with his timekeeping, y'see."

"Well, I guess it's important that you don't lose sight of the lives you already have, right?" Izzy said, smiling a little. "Not that I'd know for definite, really. Been a long, long while since I had a life." His smile suddenly turned sad, and Callum felt an uncomfortable nagging worry that he should hug him or something. Instead, he gave the blonde-haired boy what he hoped was a consoling pat on the shoulder.

Izzy gave a little nod of appreciation, and Callum went to say something, but he decided against it as the group came to the end of the corridor, at another steel-plated door, identical to the first one.

"Seems like every door system in this place has fused," Tammy said, after smacking at the panel beside the door a few times. She turned to the Doctor. "Would your assistant care to step in?"

"Sure," nodded Izzy, stepping past the others to get to the keypad. He chewed his lip thoughtfully as he worked, and with a final smile of satisfaction a matter of seconds later, there was a clank and the door swung open.

"Record timing," the Doctor beamed, rewarding him with a pat on the back as he passed him into the next chamber. The rest of the group filed in with Callum coming last.

"Should I shut the door?" he asked, stepping through the hatchway.

"No, it's fine, it'll close itself," the Doctor said, dismissively, as the door groaned, sealing them in.

This main area was a round metal dome about the size of a classroom. The floor was the same metal grilles as the corridors outside and the walls were a mesh of steel, blue plastic coverings and several exposed black tubes as thick as tree branches, as well as three computer screens.

The Doctor had rushed to one instantly, stepping around a plastic bench area and rapping his knuckles against the screen in an attempt to get it to switch on.

"Try now," Tammy said, opening a panel and yanking down a lever. There was an oscillating whine of power and the screens flickered into life.

"Ah, brilliant, thank you, Tammy!" the Doctor smiled. "Let's have a quick look-see, ay!"

His fingers began tapping away rapidly at the screen, text rushing by at an incredible speed. The Doctor looked like he was enjoying himself as page after page of information sped by.

"Pause, pause, pause!" Izzy said, prodding his finger down on the screen. "You skipped a video log!"

"Ah, good eye!" the Doctor nodded, scrolling back with a flick of a finger. He looked over his shoulder to Callum. "Better keep up, Hendrick!"

"Oh, shut up," laughed Callum. "What's the log for anyways?"

"Not sure," the Doctor replied. "Let's find out!"

He prodded the screen and the video widened to fit. The others crowded around to look as a grainy video of a terrified-looking woman with long ash-grey hair appeared. Her voice began to play out of the in-built speakers, out of sync with the video. They all recognised it as the full transmission they had heard on the ship up above.

"_H-hello? Is anyone receiving me? This is Julia Anderson of the Fortuna Major Undersea Base, over!_" The next part had been zapped out by white noise and static, but it was playing in full now. "_There's something down here, over. They're chasing us down. D'amico and Smith are dead. The captain is dead, over. I think we have three casualties. Something was brought onboard, over. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Over. Hello? He-_"

This time, as opposed to the video cutting out, there was a flash of blue light that grasped out at Julia Anderson. She was illuminated with the light – it poured out her eyes, her mouth – and then with that final scream they had all heard before, the video cut off.

"What the hell was that?" breathed Zozo, a hand held to her mouth in fright.

"Something incredibly bad," the Doctor replied, wide-eyed and worried.

"Any idea what it is?" asked Callum.

He shook his head. "Not a clue."

"So now would probably be a good time to get back up to the surface?" Izzy said.

"No, no, no," the Doctor said, turning on the spot to face the group. "They'll have their own problems to worry about now."

"Like what?" frowned Marcus.

"Like the exact same one we have... right... now," the Doctor said, looking past them all. They all swivelled to look at what he was facing, and Callum took a step back in shock as another metal hatch swung wide open to reveal a figure in a heavy grey diving suit with a rusty diving helmet and thick black gloves.

It stood for a moment, and Callum caught a glimpse of incredibly bright blue eyes glinting within the helmet, then it began to raise a bulky gloved hand to point at them.

"Through the door!" the Doctor cried, sonicking the nearest hatch. Fortunately, they didn't need to wait on the keypad to unfuse the system, and it swung open almost instantly. Quickly, Tammy, Marcus and Zozo rushed through. Callum and Izzy stood behind the Doctor as he waited in the doorway, staring straight at whoever or whatever was inside the diving suit.

It was still pointing at them, standing completely still – like a statue.

And then the hatch they had originally came through swung open and Erica and Felix emerged.

"Well, there was absolutely nothing I could dete- oh my!"

"Erica, Felix, get ba-" The Doctor's cry was cut short as a flare of blue light seemed to shoot from the diver's gloved hand and hit the two medics. Erica gave a wide-eyed yell of pain as the blue light blasted out of her eyes and mouth, while Felix was thrown back, landing almost right in front of the Doctor.

Almost a second later, the Doctor was pushed aside by Marcus, who had snapped a pistol out of his holster and fired a shot straight at the diver. The glaring light broke off as the diver stumbled backwards, and Erica crashed to the floor with a bang.

The creature inside the suit gave a roar of outrage and sent a blast of light flying for Marcus, but he quickly sent several more shots at the suit and with a sudden hiss of released air from within the suit, the creature crashed to the floor.

"I-is it dead?" asked Izzy.

"Not sure," the Doctor said, taking a careful step over to Erica. He held two fingers against her neck and then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Whatever that energy was, it's completely frozen her inside out – she's dead."

"Oh god," Tammy groaned, holding her face in her hands as she re-emerged through the doorway, with Zozo at her shoulder. "Oh... oh god."

"But at least now we can see what we're up against," Marcus said, striding over and ripping the diving helmet off. He reeled back in horror as he saw the face of the suit's occupant – the others all gasped and the Doctor's expression darkened even further.

Julia Anderson stared unseeingly at them; her skin was pale, her lips were blue, and several purple-blue veins were prominent across her face – but the most terrifying thing of all was her eyes, so blue that they almost glowed...

"D-Doctor," Callum said, "you said that up there, they'd be facing the same sort of trouble..."

"Yes... I did."

"What did you mean?"

* * *

Keith sighed and gazed into the steaming mug of coffee that Sheila had put down in front of him. Laura was sipping at the hot chocolate with cinnamon she had concocted.

"You alright?" she asked, seeing the boredom etched in her boyfriend's face. She reached a hand across the table and placed her hand on top of his. He smiled a little and looked up at her.

"Aw, yeah, don't mind me," he nodded. "Just feel like we should be down there with those three, y'know?"

"Missing out on the adventure?" she giggled. "I thought you'd be glad for the break! We spend most of our time with the Doctor getting shot at or chased down corridors and fire escapes! It's nice to just sit back and relax sometimes without having to worry that someone's out to kill you."

"Heh, I guess so," smiled Keith. "I could get used to a bit of peace and qui-"

He was suddenly interrupted by his phone ringing. He'd placed it on the table in front of him, and as soon as it went he glanced up, his eyes locking with Laura's, as he accepted the call and put it on speaker.

"_Keith, it's Callum! We're all in trouble!_"

"What is it?" Laura asked. "What's happened?"

As she spoke, Sheila and John came over to see what was happening.

"_Something's happened to the crew down here, and their bodies are up and about! And the Doctor says that the computer just picked up signals of several human-sized signals moving up towards the surface. You're gonna all have to get into the TARDIS where it's safe!_"

"Oh, crap!" Keith groaned. "I didn't bring my key."

"Neither did I," admitted Laura, smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead. Callum's voice was indistinct for a moment as he spoke to someone else – presumably the Doctor – but a moment later he replied.

"_The Doctor says that you're all going to have to lock yourselves in the safest part of the ship. Marcus told us that he and Fergus are the only ones with weapons, and it takes quite a lot of bullets to stop these things._"

"Defense is the best offense, I guess?"

"_For now it looks like it,_" Callum replied, gravely. "_Stay safe, okay, guys?_"

"Will do," Keith said. "You guys heading back now?"

"_Tammy and Marcus think we need to stay and search for survivors, but as soon as we've checked for them we'll take the WaterShaft straight back up!_"

"And straight into a potential ambush!"

"_Only option we've got for now,_" sighed Callum. "_We've just got to hope for the best, I suppose._"

"Okay, then. Good luck!"

"_You too! We'll see you soon, promise!_"

And with that the call disconnected.

"I'll go get the Captain," said Sheila, bustling towards the door.

"We'll be okay," Keith said, gripping Laura's hand a little tighter.

"Are you saying that for my benefit or for yours?" she chuckled, squeezing his hand in response.


End file.
